CWS Budget - Clean Water Services

Clean Water Services (CWS) goes through a budget process to help guide the community’s investments in water resources management and establish sewer and stormwater rates for the following fiscal year.

Two men in hard hats and safety vests lean over to look at something on the ground, with a blue CWS truck in the background.

Everything we do at CWS aims to protect public health, while enhancing the natural environment of the watershed. The rates you pay support our work in protecting water resources as we respond to the changing needs of our community. This requires investments in aging infrastructure, ensuring the long-term health of rivers and streams, keeping up with a growing community, and meeting stricter federal and state pollution control rules.

We are dedicated to keeping rates reasonable and predictable and providing value for ratepayers through a livable community.

The CWS Board of Directors adopted our Fiscal Year 2025-26 Budget on June 17, including a 3% rate increase or about $1.95* a month for the average residential customer. Approved changes to rates go into effect July 1, 2025.

We prepared several supplemental documents that inform our budget and provide additional details and context.

Our five-year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) includes any planned asset acquired, constructed, financed, modified, or replaced by CWS with a total cost of at least $50,000 and a useful life of five years or more. All FY 2025-26 project costs identified in the CIP are incorporated into the FY 2025-26 budget.
Our Department & Program Roadmaps are a deeper dive into the day-to-day work and initiatives for continual improvement and innovations the teams are working on with their budgeted resources. It is our go-to document to see what the teams are working on.  
Our guide to the budget highlights significant organizational changes and details about travel, training, and meals and refreshments spending.
To provide additional transparency into our travel and training budget, we prepared a summary table that shows the amounts budgeted by department and program for travel and training in FY 2024-25 and FY 2025-26 and the year-over-year change. We also created a list of events and sponsorships we budgeted for. See that information here.
To provide additional transparency into meals and refreshments expenditures not associated with travel, we prepared a summary table that shows amounts budgeted by department and program in Other Materials & Services and the year-over-year change. Please note, this line item includes other miscellaneous expenses. Read more detail here.
Our informational report on occupied buildings provides an update on three building projects that are under construction or in the planning and design phase — CWS Central, RIPL, and Springer.
We invited members of our Budget Committee to ask us questions about our proposed budget and CIP. Read their questions and our responses in our Budget Q&A (updated 5/28/2025).

Customers are always invited and encouraged to take part in the budget process.

On Friday, May 9, 2025, the CWS Budget Committee reviewed the proposed budget in the first of two meetings. See the Notice of May 9 Budget Committee Meeting, agenda, and slides for details.
On Friday, May 23, 2025, the CWS Budget Committee reviewed and approved the proposed budget in the second of two meetings. The committee recommended that the Board of Directors adopts it.  See the Notice of May 23 Budget Committee Meeting, agenda and slides for details.
On Tuesday, June 17, 2025,  the Clean Water Services Board of Directors held three public hearings where they considered and adopted the budget, pay plan, and rates and charges — including a 3% rate increase — for Fiscal Year 2025-26. See the budget hearing agenda.

CWS serves more than 600,000 customers of urban Washington County, and the county is expected to add 90,000 people by 2030. Planning well is essential to meet service needs effectively and cost-efficiently.

Reference Materials

FAQs

How are sewer and surface water management rates set?

Oregon law allows Clean Water Services to collect fees for sewer and surface water management, similar to other government utilities such as water suppliers. The Board of Directors, your publicly elected representatives, formally set the rates and charges after a series of public hearings. The rate structure generates sufficient revenue to operate, maintain, and improve the community’s sanitary sewer system and surface water management.

How does Clean Water Services reduce long-term costs?

CWS has reinvented the utility mindset to bring value to our ratepayers by building workforce capacity, investing in lean approaches, and serving as a technology incubator and accelerator for positive impact across our region, the nation, and throughout the world.

Energy Efficiency. CWS energy investments pay big dividends, not only for the environment but also for the bottom line. Some of these energy-reduction efforts include:

Saved at least $300,000 per year from energy reduction projects since 2009.
Built a large solar energy facility that will save $400,000 in energy costs during its lifetime. This project follows two other solar projects that will also lead to savings.
Measuring and tracking energy use and implementing an energy savings plan as an official Energy Star Partner — a program coordinated by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Improving operating efficiency at our four wastewater treatment facilities — part of the Energy Trust’s Energy Improvement Program.
- Our Rock Creek and Durham facilities produce 25-50% of their annual energy demand through cogeneration and solar power generation.

Nutrient Recovery. We recover nutrients through the treatment process that can be reused. These processes save time, money, and capacity.

These facilities enhance the treatment process by removing phosphorus and ammonia from recycle flows to the mainstream wastewater flow that would otherwise have to be retreated.

Smart Water. CWS uses sensors and controls to provide optimal services to our region, including wastewater operations and acting as an influencer of smart stormwater systems.

Why are rates different from city to city?

Clean Water Services and its partner cities adopted a new rate model in 2008 that provides stable funding for regional services and provides flexibility for CWS and its partner cities to provide local services:

Clean Water Services’ Board of Directors sets the regional portion of the sanitary sewer rate and the SWM rate for urban Washington County customers.
Local rates are set by local service providers. Seven partner cities — Beaverton, Cornelius, Forest Grove, Hillsboro, Sherwood, Tigard, and Tualatin — provide local services in their communities. Clean Water Services provides local services in urbanized unincorporated areas of Washington County and within the city limits of Banks, Durham, Gaston, King City, and North Plains.
The SWM rate income is shared proportionally between Clean Water Services and its partner cities.

To meet additional local needs, the cities may add and retain a surcharge or Right-of-Way (franchise) fee to their local sanitary sewer rate and/or the regional SWM rate. In the City of Hillsboro, the sanitary Right-of-Way fee is 3.5%, in the cities of Sherwood, Beaverton, and Tigard the Right-of-Way fee is 5%. For more information on these additional fees please contact your city.

How does new development pay to connect?

For each new dwelling, the developer pays a one-time fee to connect to the sanitary sewer and surface water management systems. New users pay System Development Charges (SDCs), or connection fees, of $7,266 ($6,625 for sanitary sewer and $641 for SWM for each dwelling unit or equivalent). Connection fees support the existing infrastructure and future capacity requirements.

What areas are served by Clean Water Services

In conjunction with 12 partner cities, we provide sewer and surface water management (SWM) to over 600,000 people in the urban areas of the Tualatin River Watershed (PDF, 189KB), which closely follows the urban growth boundary.

Areas served are the cities of Banks, Beaverton, Cornelius, Durham, Forest Grove, Gaston, Hillsboro, King City, North Plains, Sherwood, Tigard, Tualatin, unincorporated Washington County, small portions of Lake Oswego, small portions of Portland, and portions of Clackamas and Multnomah counties.

*The proposed sanitary sewer and Surface Water Management rate increases will add an estimated $2.65 per month, or an increase of 4%, to the typical combined bill for residential customers in Banks, Durham, Gaston, King City, North Plains, and unincorporated Washington County who are billed directly by CWS. The cities of Beaverton, Cornelius, Forest Grove, Hillsboro, Sherwood, Tigard, and Tualatin set their own city rates for local services, so the typical combined bill for residential customers in those cities could be different.   