But as a new report by the Orange County Register makes clear, at least part of those rate hikes are necessary for reasons that have nothing to do with short supplies.  Read the rest of the editorial, click here

He also reported that MWD has accumulated $545 million in debt to fund the benefit, mostly because they have not been setting any money aside to cover the cost for current employees.  And, despite plans to incrementally fund the benefit over time,  projections show that those funds are not  enough.

MWD’s consultants project that the debt is currently growing by more than $30 million annually. Since 2005, the tab  has grown 76 percent. It could rise even higher,  if more people than expected retire, live longer and health care costs keep rising.

Concern over  the rising cost of MWD’s retiree medical benefit, and its impact on water ratepayers was also expressed last fall  by former San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders.  In a letter to MWD Chariman John Foley, Mayor Sanders wrote to MWD and asked MWD for an accounting of the impact on water rates.

MWD Chair Foley responded by saying that MWD will continue to fund and approve rates that pay for this benefit.

MWD will be required to update its numbers and report those to the board this spring.  Once it becomes available, that presentation and update will be posted on this website.

To read the OC Watchdog story, click here.

If employees work at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California for at least 10 years, the agency covers half of their medical insurance bills in retirement. If they work 20 years, it covers the entire cost.

And until last year, the benefit was even sweeter. Employees hired before 2012 got all their medical insurance bills in retirement paid by the district if they worked at least five years. The agency scaled back that offer through labor negotiations to reduce costs.

Lifetime medical care has become unusual among public agencies, in part because the cost to taxpayers or ratepayers can be significant. Life expectancy after retirement and health care costs have been rising.

Together, these factors have placed additional pressure on the agency’s $1.5 billion budget and water rates across the region. The agency’s retiree health payments grew from $8 million in 2006 to $12.7 million last year.

And in addition to these upfront costs, the benefit has created a growing mountain of future obligations.  (click here to read the rest of the story)

Over the years, we’ve come to expect the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to behave badly in its dealings with the San Diego County Water Authority, but its latest act sets a new low-water mark.

California Strategies, LLC, a local lobbying outfit, is being paid $15,000 a month to work on behalf of the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) on a San Diego-based public relations campaign, records show. Except, MWD isn’t paying the invoices, a smaller agency in Riverside County with no direct connection to San Diego is funding the work – a point of contention for San Diego water authorities.

To view the related video on NBC 7/39, click here: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/investigations/video/188675681.html

The full scope and objectives of the public relations effort are unknown because Eastern’s officials are refusing to comply with state public records law and turn over all unedited relevant documents.  The  San Diego County Water Authority  filed a lawsuit on January 22 seeking a court order compelling Eastern to release the records.

The Water Authority and Eastern both buy water from MWD, a wholesale water supplier for Southern California.  In 2010 and 2012, the Water Authority sued MWD, claiming that its water rates and charges illegally overcharge ratepayers in San Diego County to the benefit of ratepayers in other parts of MWD’s service area.  The cases are pending in San Francisco Superior Court.

“Eastern’s elected officials and staff can’t legally hide the true intent of a public relations contract just because Eastern is involved in litigation with the Water Authority,” said attorney Kelly A. Aviles, who specializes in California Public Records Act law and represents the Water Authority in its lawsuit against Eastern. “The California Constitution and state law require public agencies to promptly provide complete copies of documents, emails, calendars and other records relating to the conduct of the public’s business.”

Aviles also is vice president of open government compliance for Californians Aware, a nonprofit organization established to help state residents understand how to hold government agencies and other public institutions accountable.

On Nov. 2, 2012, the Water Authority sent a public records request to Eastern for a copy of a public relations contract the agency had issued. 

Eastern initially gave the Water Authority a copy of the contract but didn’t include a June 1, 2012, letter that included details on the nature of the public relations campaign in San Diego County. The Water Authority pressed Eastern to comply with state law.  Eastern then sent the letter, but blacked out the section that detailed the scope of the public relations campaign.  The Water Authority  sent another letter, which then prompted Eastern to disclose some of the language that had been redacted.  It showed  that the public relations effort was being conducted on behalf of “…MWD and its member agencies.”   Unbeknownst to them, Eastern’s water ratepayers have spent $60,000 so far on behalf of MWD.

Further, surreptitiously funding a public relations campaign on behalf of MWD appears to be at odds with provisions of SB 60, a law passed by the Legislature in 1999 that prohibits MWD and its member agencies from “any association structure or identification that is likely to mislead the public as to the association’s true identity, its source of funding or its purpose.”  Passage of the legislation followed revelations of unethical behavior by MWD that played out in newspapers across the state.

To learn more about the California Public Records Act, visit: http://www.sunshinereview.org/index.php/California_Public_Records_Act#ixzz2HgZjpHmB

The data was collected from the Urban Water Management plans of the 26 member agencies of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. The San Diego County Water Authority compiled this data into a map and a list so that the public could more readily visualize the impact of the planned projects on future demand for imported water.

List of water projects in Southern California.

To give some perspective, a million acre-feet is 1.6 times Los Angeles’ annual water use. It is enough water to irrigate all the grain produced in California annually. It is enough water to satisfy the household needs of 6.7 million Californians.  (Source: The Pacific Institute)

Yet, Metropolitan – Southern California’s  water wholesaler and  the biggest buyer of water from the State Water Project –   has not considered many of these  projects in its decision-making about the necessary size, scope and cost of a Bay-Delta facility.  For example, the San Diego County Water Authority recently announced plans to buy up to 56,000 acre feet of desalinated seawater beginning in 2017 – but this demand reduction has not been acknowledged by Metropolitan.  This is enough water to meet the annual needs of 110,00 families.

Planning for a Bay-Delta project that ratepayers will be asked to pay for should logically take into account the reality that most water agencies in Southern California are planning to decrease their imported water purchases from Metropolitan, and thus, in turn, lessen the demand for water from the Bay-Delta.

Further, there are critical questions that haven’t been answered — and must be answered — to know what size, scope and cost of a Bay-Delta project makes the most sense, including:

•  What is the real demand in Southern California for water imported from the Bay-Delta?
•  What size project are agencies willing to pay for, as demonstrated by firm, long-term financial commitments by those who will benefit from it?  Metropolitan acknowledges that its member agencies are not obligated to purchase or use any of the water available from Metropolitan.  If Metropolitan’s member agencies continue to reduce their purchases of imported water from Metropolitan, as they already are doing, who will be left to pay Metropolitan’s share of the Bay-Delta costs?