San Antonio Report
by Lindsey Carnett
June 13, 2023 at 02:48PM
San Antonio Water System’s board of trustees unanimously approved a 15% pay raise for President and CEO Robert Puente on Tuesday, his first increase in nearly three years.
Puente’s base salary will increase from $516,381 annually to $593,838 per year effective June 14, board Chairwoman Jelynne LeBlanc Jamison said. Puente’s last raise came in August 2020 when he got a 4% pay bump to what was then a salary of $496,520.
Jamison said the bigger increase was necessary to stay competitive within the industry. Puente is the utility’s longest-tenured president and CEO, having held his current position since 2008.
“We are looking at the market and making sure that our CEO is not falling behind the market in terms of competitiveness,” LeBlanc Jamison said. “At some point, Robert will move on, and I want to make sure that we are in the right position for future succession.”
LeBlanc Jamison said the SAWS board continues to be impressed by Puente’s performance leading the water utility. Puente achieved about two-thirds of the annual goals the SAWS board set for him over the past year, according to his annual evaluation in April.
At that time, he was awarded a $94,000 bonus that is deferred until 2025, a move further designed to keep him leading SAWS. A separate bonus of more than $100,000 the board approved for Puente last year also is deferred until 2025.
In April, Trustees commended Puente for implementing a new rate structure, maintaining an AA-plus bond rating and improving the water system’s resiliency by collaborating with CPS Energy to purchase backup generators for critical pumping stations in 2022.
“His performance speaks for itself every year. He’s scored very well,” LeBlanc Jamison said. “We’ve had some major initiatives at SAWS, which Robert and his team have led to successful completion and so we’ve recognized that performance.”
In November, SAWS trustees approved the water utility’s largest-ever budget at $978.8 million, which included 10% raises for all SAWS employees while also shrinking most residential customers’ bills.
In 2021, SAWS created a compensation committee that introduced a deferred bonus system for Puente.
SAWS launched the deferred bonus system following calls by city leaders including Mayor Ron Nirenberg for bonuses for municipally owned utility officials to be curtailed after a San Antonio Report review found that Puente was among the highest-paid public water utility executives in the United States.
“The committee looks at market data every year, and periodically, we gave ourselves the opportunity to adjust [Puente’s] base appropriately,” LeBlanc Jamison said. “So it’s time for us to adjust his base compensation.”
Nirenberg has said he supported the board’s switch to a deferred bonus structure, as it helps retain top talent while also being mindful of ratepayers. The mayor, who sits on the board in his official capacity, was not present at Tuesday’s meeting.
In years past, Puente has turned down bonuses and pay raises for various reasons. In 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic, Puente announced he would divert the $100,000 bonus he earned to Project Agua, which provides payment assistance for SAWS customers facing financial emergencies. He also declined a $96,500 bonus in 2017 because he said it had become a distraction, interfering with efforts to explain why the utility needed a rate increase at the time. Puente refused both bonuses and salary increases in 2009 and 2010 to support SAWS employees who didn’t see wage increases in those years.
This time around, Puente accepted the raise and thanked the utility’s board.
“To me, it’s been an honor to be the longest-serving president/CEO in SAWS’ history,” he said. “Along the way, we’ve been able to take care of our employees with recent market adjustments, higher entry-level pay and moving up performance pay for our current employees during a period filled with uncertainty for some workplaces.”