CWA weighted vote allocation recalculated to reflect FPUD detachment

The completion of the detachment of the Fallbrook Public Utility District from the San Diego County Water Authority resulted in a revision of the SDCWA weighted vote allocation for 2024.

Under the new weighted vote approved at the Jan. 25 CWA board meeting the Rainbow Municipal Water District will have 3.935% of the vote and Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton will have a weighted vote of 0.077% for the rest of the 2024 meetings.

The approval of the new weighted vote had no opposition from the CWA board although Padre Dam Municipal Water District board member Rocky Qualin and Rainbow Municipal Water District general manager Jake Wiley, who are those two districts’ delegates to the CWA board, abstained.

The 2024 weighted vote allocations for the CWA member agencies had initially been approved during the Nov. 16 CWA board meeting and gave 3.849% of the weighted vote to Rainbow, 2.164% to FPUD, and 0.075% to Camp Pendleton.

The member vote entitlement is calculated based on the total cumulative financial contribution from each agency since the CWA was formed in 1944. The contribution amount includes all taxes, assessments, fees, and charges paid to or on behalf of the CWA by property located within the member agency's boundary by the June 30 end of the previous fiscal year.

The cost of water treatment is not included in the total financial contribution, but the totals include standby charges, capacity charges, infrastructure access charges, readiness-to-serve charges, connection and maintenance fees, and annexation fees as well as charges for water delivered and sold to CWA member agencies.

The detachment of FPUD from the CWA became effective Jan. 1. The total cumulative financial contribution of the 24 CWA member agencies including FPUD was $16,876,247,910 as of June 30, 2023. The 23 agencies remaining in the CWA had total contributions of $16,510,976,699. The cumulative contributions for all 24 agencies through the end of Fiscal Year 2021-22 were $16,166,693,662.

Rainbow's cumulative contribution at the conclusion of Fiscal Year 2022‑23 was $649,657,511. The district had cumulative contributions of $629,152,426 on June 30, 2022. Camp Pendleton’s total payments were $12,681,713 at the end of Fiscal Year 2022-23 and $12,607,898 as of June 30, 2022.

During 2023 board meetings Rainbow had 3.892% of the weighted vote, the FPUD share was 2.205%, and Camp Pendleton had an allocation of 0.078%.