Killeen, Jarrell express interest in purchasing Georgetown water territory

The sale of portions of Georgetown’s water district is moving forward as city staff begin receiving responses from neighboring cities about purchasing Georgetown’s water service territory located in other cities’ extraterritorial jurisdictions. 

Georgetown Strategic Projects Manager Caroline Stewart said the goal of the effort is to reduce its potential future water deficit. Selling parts of the water territory, known as the CCN, would decrease the amount of acre-feet per year Georgetown must provide to its own customers from 100,000 to 41,000.

Under the proposed Georgetown plan, about 11,500 water customers would be transferred to new utilities, while roughly 62,000 would remain within Georgetown’s service area, also called the CCN. Potential transfers include customers in the ETJs of Salado, Killeen, Jarrell, Liberty Hill and Florence. 

“Killeen is the first [city] to take us up on [buying part of Georgetown’s CCN in their ETJ],” Ms. Stewart told council during its September 23 workshop. “Killeen said they wanted a portion. They do not want most of their service territory. They requested to exclude any area that has infrastructure in it.” 

Jarrell is also interested in acquiring the area within its ETJ, she said. 

It will be several months before the sales to Killeen and Jarrell return to council for a vote because maps must be finalized to show what is included. 

Three portions of land outside any city’s ETJ have also drawn interest from four to five state and national water providers, Ms. Stewart said. “I think utilities provide a pretty consistent, stable return,” she said. 

“They are allowed a guaranteed rate of return, so there are investors who do see this as a solid, safe business investment.”

Georgetown will retain all customers within its city limits, its ETJ and a portion of territory west of the ETJ to Highway 183. 

Selling territory 

The sale of Georgetown’s CCN will take place in two stages: October 6 to November 14, and December 1 to January 31. 

To find the final providers, city staff will use evaluation proposals on several factors: 

• Water delivery plan
• Sale price
• Utility’s experience and qualifications
• Ability to provide continuous, adequate service
• Water system modification plan
• Rate impact to customers 

“The top ranked proposers are going to advance to Stage 2, at which time the sale territory will be finalized,” Ms. Stewart said. “By then, we will have heard back from all of the neighboring cities on whether or not they want their area to be included in the sale, or whether those neighboring cities want to buy the area themselves.” 

Finalists will tour potential territory and provide the city with a financial analysis before submitting final offers. 

“We are going to allow the bidders to come up with the price and propose that,” Ms. Stewart said. “We’re going to give them information about how much we have invested in this infrastructure, the bonds we have issued, the defeasance cost for those bonds. We’re going to make all of this information available to them, but we’re not going to list a minimum sales price.”

Neighboring cities have provided the following feedback to Georgetown: 

• Killeen is interested in retaining a small portion of territory, with the rest included in Georgetown’s Request for Proposal
• Jarrell wants to buy the water territory area in Jarrell’s ETJ.
• Salado expressed interest in acquiring its territory.
• Florence is considering options.
• Liberty Hill is considering options.