Relating to creating the Central Texas Water Alliance; providing authority to issue bonds; granting the power of eminent domain; providing authority to impose fees.

Contracts

• Water Supply Agreements: Review all current water contracts. The CTWA will utilize "Take-or-Pay" contracts where voting power on the Board is directly tied to the volume of water committed. You must negotiate volume commitments not just for supply, but for governance influence.
• Debt Covenants: If you intend to transfer infrastructure (pipelines/plants) to the Alliance, you must review your existing bond indentures. Conveying assets to the CTWA without an election is permitted by this law, but may trigger default clauses in your current lending agreements.

Hiring/Training

• Board Appointments: Sponsors (counties and potentially private entities) must appoint directors annually between January 1 and February 28.
• Conflict Management: Appointed directors must be trained on Section 11020.0205. They must file sworn affidavits and abstain from voting on any matter where they have a regulatory conflict of interest. Failure to do so jeopardizes the legality of Board decisions.

Reporting & Record-Keeping

• Sponsorship Petitions: Private entities seeking to join the Alliance must submit a formal petition. You must track the Board's initial rulemaking to obtain the required format for these petitions.
• Rate Studies: The Alliance is authorized to bypass bond elections based on professional rate studies. You must demand and retain copies of these "revenue and growth projections" to verify that rate hikes are actuarially justified.

Fees & Costs

• New Rate Structures: The Alliance will establish wholesale water and wastewater rates. These are not capped by the statute; they are legally required to be sufficient to cover all debt service and operations.
• Pass-Through Mandates: If you are a municipal sponsor, you are statutorily required to set your end-user fees high enough to meet your financial obligations to the Alliance. These payments must be categorized as operating expenses in your budget, taking priority over other debt service.