A Utility That Touches Everyone in LA
If you live or work in Los Angeles, you rely on the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) every day, whether you think about it or not. Water from the tap. Lights that turn on. Power for your phone, your home, your business.
Another thing most people don’t think about is that over time these essential services have had to evolve. More than ever before, LADWP has to manage a system that reduces climate pollution, powers more electric cars and appliances, integrates massive amounts of solar and wind, reduces ocean discharges and conserves water, just to name a few. As a result, utility services and operations are more complex and more expensive, requiring new technology, people and processes to meet changing customer, grid and regulatory demands.
How do decisions get made about what happens when those services get more expensive or out of reach for parts of our city? How are costs calculated, new technology evaluated, and new solutions implemented? Who is making sure that the system is working for you?
“Our job is to help ensure LADWP doesn’t just meet technical targets but delivers public value and meets its duty of delivering safe, reliable, affordable and clean service — in every neighborhood, for every customer.”
The Role of the Office of Public Accountability
Created by voters in 2011, the OPA is the City’s official Ratepayer Advocate. Our mission is to seek to improve the performance of LADWP by providing independent analysis of LADWP’s rates, policies, programs and decisions; to evaluate whether investments are reasonable; and to make the utility’s decision-making more transparent. The OPA may also investigate customer issues to evaluate and seek to improve the utility's customer service.
In short: we provide information and advice to LADWP, the Mayor, and the Los Angeles City Council to help ensure the utility delivers on its promises to customers, to communities, and to the future of Los Angeles.
A Utility Like No Other
We are one of many public advocate offices across the country, but we operate in an environment that is unique in scope and scale. LADWP is the largest municipal utility in the United States, serving nearly 4 million people with water and power. It sits in the heart of the nation's innovation breadbasket, and is more ambitious than almost any other utility in the country: planning to eliminate fossil fuels, replace distant water imports, modernize aging infrastructure, and do it all while strengthening its workforce, centering on equity and delivering on climate resilience.
But Los Angeles also faces severe challenges: worsening fire risk and air quality, rising air temperatures and a shrinking Colorado River, aging infrastructure, and stark inequality. Building a clean utility and maximally supporting the workforce through the transition is hard. Building one that is affordable, reliable, and just is harder still.
What the Public Should Expect
Reviewing rates is just the beginning. Our office is here to push LADWP to think bigger and broader:
- Asking about alternatives that are being left off the table - including technology, business process and financial options
- Pushing for the utility to use the full range of available tools — demand response, energy storage, smart water reuse, distributed solar, advanced meters — to ease the burden on ratepayers.
- Making sure rate increases are designed in a way that protects low-income households while also embedding signals to support and reward efficiency and conservation
- Underscoring that LAWDP must account for climate risk, equity, workforce, and future affordability at the same time.
We take the promises made to the public seriously — such as those outlined in LADWP’s Customer Bill of Rights, and those made by City Leadership past and present. Our job is to hold the utility to those standards, and to push for more when plans fall short.
A Catalyst for Progress
What should you expect from your Ratepayer Advocate? You should expect us to challenge assumptions, raise questions others may not, and bring forward ideas that make the system stronger, more fair, and more sustainable. You should expect us to listen to you — to the communities whose voices must be heard in the decisions shaping our future.
OPA is not just a watchdog — we are an advisor, a catalyst and an advocate. For fairness. For innovation. For a more responsive and transparent utility, a more educated and involved electorate, and a more empowered public.
We’re just getting started.
Tim O’Connor
Executive Director, Ratepayer Advocate