Our Mission and Focus
Under Section 23.144 of the Los Angeles City Charter, the mission of the Office of Public Accountability (OPA) / Ratepayer Advocate is:
The OPA shall seek to improve the performance of the DWP by analyzing and reporting on the reasonableness of water and power utility rates, the DWP’s long-term strategic planning documents, and other DWP policies, procedures, decisions, contracts, and programs, including assessing the reasonableness of such proposals and the assumptions upon which they are based.
The OPA shall provide information and make recommendations to the Board, the City Council, the Mayor, Neighborhood Councils, and the public to assure the DWP’s transparency and accountability to its customers and reasonableness of its policies and rates.
The OPA shall provide information and advice, as opposed to direction, to the DWP, the Mayor and Council.
As an office that functions independently of the LADWP and its management structure, and of the City Council, Mayor and Controller, the OPA executes its statutory mission by 1) standing as an independent voice that safeguards the public trust and advocates for ratepayers, and 2) focused on ensuring transparent, data-driven oversight of LADWP. A central goal of the office is to support LADWP in achieving critical climate, water, and equity goals, while tirelessly working to maintain affordability and resilience for all. The OPA / Ratepayer Advocate is further guided by the notion that it should represent a model for utility oversight, public engagement and finding the balance between ratepayer protections and meeting ambitious utility goals. It endeavors to accomplish this through rigorous pursuit of performance improvement and transparency via engagement with the Utility, City Council, Mayor, Neighborhood Councils, and the public.
Our Strategic Approach
Achieving our mission in alignment with our principles, the OPA / Ratepayer Advocate works to ensure LADWP offers best-in-class affordable, sustainable, and transparent service to its customers. In furtherance of our mission and focus, we work within four main strategic approaches :
Communicating and advocating for ratepayer needs and priorities
- Support increased public participation with ratepayer advocate
- Ensure money is spent in the ratepayers’ best interest
- Encourage efficiency and advocate for rates that reflect costs
- Focus utility efforts on impactful ratepayer programs (e.g., affordability, conservation, etc.)
Increasing transparency of utility decisions and programs
- Ensure sufficient information is available to public to enable effective public participation
- Make sure information that is available is clear and understandable
- Help ratepayers have more insight into their bills
Pursuing energy and water goals that are core to reliable and sustainable utility service
- Quantify value of meeting energy and water goals for ratepayers
- Engage LADWP’s development of water and energy programs to focus on reasonableness, affordability, achievability, and equitable access
Supporting LADWPs effort to be a best-in-class utility, supported by a best-in class ratepayer advocate
- Create and support levers and mechanisms for authentic public involvement with the ratepayer advocate and utility
- Support utility operational and reliability excellence
- Ensure a utility commitment to best practices for cost and revenue requirement analysis
- Support cross-department and cross-city relationships to support advocacy and coordinate initiatives