Upgrading Conservation Pricing Proposition 218, Smart Meters, And The Step Beyond Tiered Rates
From the California Water Law Journal, in an article by Bryan Barnhart:
“Proposition 218 is pushing California’s conservation-pricing programs to evolve. Conservation-pricing programs use price signals to discourage the waste of water. Currently, such programs commonly rely on tiered rates. …
“Tiered-rate programs’ constitutionality was called into question, however, by the 1998 passage of Proposition 218, which prohibits public agencies from imposing any fee or charge ‘upon a parcel or upon a person as an incident of property ownership’ that is more than ‘the proportional cost of the service attributable to the parcel.’”
Read more from the California Water Law Journal