El Paso Water hires San Antonio marketing firm to instill customers' confidence in utility
KGBTexas getting $1.2M to help El Paso Water create positive messages about water quality, water supply, and conservation. El Paso Water has hired San Antonio marketing and public relations firm KGBTexas Communications to increase customer confidence in the utility's water quality and long-term water supply. The two-year contract was approved by the El Paso Public Service Board and is on top of El Paso Water's $3.1 million budget for its Communications and Government Affairs Department. The money comes from ratepayers who have seen their water bills increase for nine consecutive years. The communications department's top managers' annual salaries are $216,842, $166,115, and Christina Montoya-Halter, marketing and communications manager, $123,558. The utility's aim is to better inform customers about the city's water system and inspire more conservation.
प्रकाशित : 10 महीने पहले द्वारा Vic Kolenc में Business
El Paso Water has hired a San Antonio marketing and public relations firm to bolster customer confidence in the utility’s water quality and long-term water supply, and better promote water conservation.
KGBTexas Communications will receive $1.2 million under a two-year contract approved in May by the El Paso Public Service Board, which oversees the city-operated utility.
The KGBTexas contract is on top of El Paso Water’s $3.1 million budget for its Communications and Government Affairs Department, with an 11-person staff and one vacant position.
The money comes from ratepayers, who have seen their water bills increase for nine consecutive years.
The communications staff gets “pulled in a lot of different directions and we’re not giving these (big issue) items the focus they deserve,” said Lisa Rosendorf, chief communications and government affairs officer.
“Our Public Service Board communications committee advised us that they thought we would benefit from having an outside firm; it would help augment our activities,” she said.
Three to four people in Rosendorf's department handle government affairs, including seeking government grants, one staffer handles the utility’s customer affordability program, and the remaining six or seven people handle the communications side of the department, she said.
A lot of the communications' staff time is going toward handling public outreach efforts for the utility’s 58 current construction projects, and KGBTexas won't be involved in that outreach, she said.
The outreach ranges from hanging project alert notices on home doors for small projects to holding public meetings for large projects, she said.
Almost 49% of the Communications and Government Affairs department's budget is for staff salaries. Its three top managers account for 33%, or $506,515, of the department budgeted $1.5 million annual payroll.
The department's top managers’ annual salaries: Rosendorf, $216,842; Hector Gonzalez, government affairs manager, $166,115; and Christina Montoya-Halter, marketing and communications manager, $123,558.
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Utility officials' aim is to better inform customers about the city’s water system and inspire more conservation, Rosendorf said.
The utility’s annual customer survey has seen a slight decrease in the percentage of customers rating the utility’s drinking water quality as good. It also shows that almost half of the surveyed customers use bottled water as their primary source of drinking water, a slight increase from 2021.
Also, companies selling water-filtration systems “are going door to door telling everyone how bad their water is, which is completely false. We need to better combat those messages,” Rosendorf said.
Water supply problems in the Phoenix area and in Mexico City have brought community questions about whether El Paso is going to run out of water, Rosendorf said.
“We have a 50-year water plan and we need to do a better job" getting information out about it, she said.
“The business community is telling us if we’re going to be able to (recruit) business to El Paso, we need to have more confidence overall in our (El Paso Water) long-term water plan.”
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It’s also important to continue to promote water conservation to customers, and that’s not received enough focus recently, she said.
“I wouldn’t necessarily see an ad campaign, but certainly we would do a set of strategies in terms of public outreach,” she said.
Those strategies are to be discussed with KGB staff beginning in late June, she said.
Vic Kolenc may be reached at 915-546-6421; [email protected]; @vickolenc on Twitter, now known as X.