As working families across the San Diego region struggle to make ends meet, the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has no such concerns. That’s because the MWD can tax and raise rates at will – and it has done precisely that. Several steps removed from nearly 20 million residents it serves, MWD overcharged ratepayers $847 million more than the agency’s budgets said was needed from 2012 to 2015. To make matters worse, MWD overspent its budget by $1.2 billion from 2013 to 2016 on things like buying Bay-Delta islands ($175 million) and turf replacement ($420 million).