The city could adopt a rate increase for the next fiscal year.

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) - College Station Utilities is looking at ways to cover rising cots of utility service. The talk of a rate increase, they say, is still on the table.

College Station’s City Manager Bryan Woods said Tuesday afternoon they are in the early phase of their annual review regarding CSU rates. They’ve put off normal rate increases in recent years and are giving it careful consideration for next year’s budget.

But, overall costs of living keep going up for families like Ishmael Flores. He has two children and is a lifelong resident in the College Station area.

“It’s definitely a difference now on the what you have to go buy. What’s the necessity? What’s something we don’t need but want,” said Flores.

If a rate increase happens it’s something Ishmael would want to prepare for.

“Something that we know that’s coming I think that would be beneficial to a lot of us here,” said Flores.

College Station Utilities saw a more than $40 million cost last year during winter storm Uri. Their costs for replacement power was nearly $14 million.

In February of last year the city said, they would exhaust all available avenues to cover those costs before considering rate increases.

“We were able to absorb that and not change the rate as the result of that but everything, we’re seeing just like everybody else is seeing in the community, the price is inflating everywhere,” said Bryan Woods, College Station City Manager.

He said many factors beyond last year’s winter storm are part of the discussion.

“Some rate increases are just going to happen over time because cost of everything goes up with natural inflation. But we’ve seen that be driven up so severely that it certainly makes the conversation about what we need to do to have a sustainable rate and system,” said Woods.

Back at the Flores house, they’ll wait and see what happens next fiscal year. He said their utility bills already top close to $300 some months.

“I know we’ll be spending a lot more just having the AC on. It’s Texas weather. It’s crazy hot,” said Flores. “I mean especially with everything that’s going up just everything everywhere, prices going up in general so definitely being able to know that things are coming because a lot of things come unexpectedly and definitely a head’s up would be great, great notice.”

The City of College Station stresses that a final decision has not been made on a rate increase. That will happen later this summer and wouldn’t take effect until Oct. 1 if a change happened. There would also be public meetings to discuss the rate.

KBTX reached out to College Station Mayor Karl Mooney and College Station Utilities for interviews to talk about the discussions Tuesday. They both referred us to the city manager.