Customers in the Las Virgenes and Oak Park water districts will pay about $3 more per month for potable water starting in January.

The rate increase is needed to cover the rising costs of wholesale water, said Glen Peterson, a Las Virgenes Municipal Water District board member who has been serving on the Metropolitan Water District board of directors for the past 17 years.

Metropolitan, which wholesales water to Southern California, will increase prices by more than 7.5 percent in 2012 to cover the rising cost of imported water and electricity—and capital improvements.

“We have to meet our balances. We’re a public agency. We don’t make money off the water,” Peterson said.

Metropolitan carries a $2.1-billion budget. About $600 million of that amount goes annually to the State Water Project, California’s water delivery system.

Tuesday, LVMWD trustees voted 4-1 to raise water rates in the local jurisdiction.

The average monthly bill for homeowners in the district will increase by about $2.45, or almost 3 percent.

The average home uses about 7,000 cubic feet over a two-month billing period, said Jeff Reinhardt, spokesperson for LVMWD.

One hundred cubic feet (748 gallons) is the unit of measurement that water agencies use for billing.

The budget for the Las Virgenes district is $61 million, with $44.2 million going to operating expenses, $13.9 million to capital projects and $2.9 million to debt service on existing obligations.

Reinhardt said the district anticipates a $732,000 cost increase for wholesale water provided by the Metropolitan Water District.

“But even with the proposed increase, rates for Las Virgenes customers remain among the lowest in the entire region, based on a survey we conducted Sept. 30,” he said.

Board member Barry Steinhardt, who opposed the local rate hike, said district officials should consider cost-cutting measures to reduce operating expenses before approving the increase.

“My belief is that there are internal things that we should be looking at first before we just . . . increase our water prices,” Steinhardt said.

The district ought to review employee scheduling to maximize worker efficiency, he said.

In August, Steinhardt was the only Las Virgenes trustee who opposed a $32,800 consultant to review the water distribution communications system. Steinhardt said the work should be done inhouse to save money.

“The district also did a $30,000 salary survey to see what other water agencies pay. It turns out we could get the same information for $150 from the Association for California Water Agencies and do the mathematical comparisons inhouse,” he said.

The Triunfo Sanitation District, meanwhile, voted unanimously to increase water rates by almost 4 percent. The change equals about $2.90 more per month for the average customer, said Mike Paule, chair of the Triunfo district, which oversees Oak Park Water, the potable water purveyor for Oak Park.

“We’re concerned about the ever increasing cost of water. But we really don’t have other options right now. That’s why we’ve been encouraging conservation and doing whatever we can to keep costs down,” Paule said.

About $2.9 million of Oak Park Water’s $5.4-million annual budget goes to potable water purchases. The district also spends $1.5 million on labor and maintenance provided by the Ventura Regional Sanitation District, and the balance supports debts and capital expenses.

According to Paule, water agencies have lost income in recent years due to water conservation.

“One of the biggest ironies in this business is the more people conserve the worse the districts do financially,” Paule said.

Oak Park Water receives water from the Calleguas Municipal Water District, which supplies potable water to about 600,000 people in Oak Park, Camarillo, Moorpark, Oxnard, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Port Hueneme and surrounding unincorporated areas.

Calleguas also imports water from Metropolitan Water District. Metropolitan will increase wholesale water rates from $981 to $1,056 per acre-foot effective January 1.

“We pay more for water because we’re not treating water and we don’t have our own infrastructure,” Paule said, adding that Calleguas also assesses fees for infrastructure and capital improvements.

Last spring, Oak Park Water pushed through a 15 percent rate increase to improve cash flow and help pay for new water tank. But the increase didn’t cover the annual rising costs of potable water, Paule said.