Winter Park Residents to Pay More for Electricity and Water in Proposed Budget
Winter Park Residents to Pay More for Electricity and Water in Proposed Budget
Higher electric bills for Winter Park are likely to be a trend in the coming years, according to projections
June 23, 2026
By Beth Kassab
Winter Park residents and business owners will pay more for water and electricity under budgets approved by the city’s Utilities Advisory Board on Tuesday.
The proposed budgets, which require ultimate approval by the City Commission by the end of the summer, call for electric rates to increase 7.7% beginning at the start of the new financial year in October while water rates will increase 4.46%.
Translated to dollars on utility bills, Winter Park residents who use about 4,000 gallons of water per month pay roughly $54 today and that would go up to about $57 (an estimated $2.49 increase), still below the regional average of just higher than $60.
But for electricity, the price change would put Winter Park above the average for municipal utilities in Florida with fewer than 100,000 customers.
Winter Park would become the fourth most expensive with rates at just under $130 or so per 1,000 kilowatt hours or an increase of about $8. The rate today is just under $120 and is 10th most expensive.
The proposal follows a 4% increase residents saw this year over 2025.
Higher rates don’t just support the utility, but also help prop up the city’s general fund responsible for paying for police, fire, parks and other essential services. The city collects a 6% franchise fee on electric bills so when rates go up so does the amount of dollars transferred to the general fund. The proposed budget for 2027 shows a $256,000 increase to $3.2 million transferred to the general fund.
In the case of both the city’s water and electric utility the cost of providing services is going up faster than the city’s revenues, Finance Director Wes Hamil told the advisory board.
For about 20 years, the city has had an ordinance that called for water rate increases to mirror the increase allowed by the Florida Public Service Commission, which this year is 2.46%
“However, those rates have not been adequate to cover the cost increases being experienced,” read Hamil’s presentation to the board.
The picture is even more stark on the electric side where projections show a series of rate increases will be needed in the coming years. Higher rates are necessary, according to the documents, to keep up with the rising cost of providing power to the city and projects such as undergrounding electric lines and paying off the debt the city took on to purchase the utility from Duke Energy (then Progress Energy) 20 years ago.
Winter Park has enjoyed years of providing some of the lowest costs in the region.
“It’s a little unrealistic to expect that will always be the case because we’re doing things others aren’t,” Hamil said, pointing to debt from the purchase and undergrounding.
By 2030, there is projected to be a nearly $10 million gap between the amount of revenue brought in by rates and the amount that will be required to run the operation, according to a preliminary cost of service study discussed by the board on Tuesday.
The study projected that rates will need to rise an average of 6.3% for each of the next five years to balance the budget.
The city of Winter Park doesn’t generate it’s own power and relies on contracts from other utilities like OUC and Florida Municipal Power Association.
The OUC contract expires at the end of this year and FPMA ends the following year. Costs are expected to go up as those contracts are renegotiated.
Also up for debate will be the city’s net metering policy or how it pays customers who generate power through their own rooftop solar panels.
More than 200 customers do so in Winter Park and that number has been rising in recent years, according to the presentation.
At issue is whether Winter Park will continue to credit them at what is known as the “retail rate” or the lower “wholesale avoided energy cost” or some combination of the two.
Budget hearings will begin at the City Commission next month.
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