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Effective Utility Management Starts With These Strategic Planning Tips

Strategic Planning Whiteboard

This article was originally published in the June 2016 issue of  Keystone Water Quality Manager. It is reprinted here with their permission.

We’re all familiar with the phrase “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” This is paraphrased from an exchange between Alice and Cheshire Cat in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Like Alice, you know you need to get “somewhere” because changing regulations, increasing costs, aging infrastructure and customer growth affect the way you provide your service. Each year as operators, managers, and board members, you’re forced to establish budgets, adopt rates and policies, and make recommendations that have long-lasting effects. You may use the best information available at the time but can’t be sure that you’re adequately prepared for what’s just around the corner.

Strategic planning is a tool that helps to identify where you need to go and the best road to get there by exploring the fundamental values and principles that support your utility’s policy and operating decisions. Properly done, it looks at all aspects of the utility’s operations in order to see if they reflect the needs of your customers, ensure regulatory compliance, and generate sufficient financial resources to be sustainable. This is not just a financial plan focused on replacing existing facilities or acquiring new ones, but a comprehensive look at the factors that will drive both short and long-term events and an identification of strategies to address them.

There are five basic elements in a strategic plan:

  1.  Vision
  2. Mission Statement
  3. Critical Success Factors
  4. Strategies and Actions to Meet Objectives
  5. Prioritization and Implementation Schedule

However, there can be as many additional elements as the utility feels is necessary to properly address the needs of all its stakeholders: its users, employees, and the community at large. Some of these elements may take a long time to complete, while others can be accomplished relatively quickly. For some, a good deal of data will be needed, while others will simply reflect widely accepted industry practices and preferences. The plan could take a month or a year to complete, depending on the level of detail believed to be required. However, one of the benefits of the planning process will be simply identifying the stakeholders and discussing the elements of the plan with them. The ability to identify areas of consensus and concern is a hugely important and valuable outcome of the plan.

Getting Ready for Strategic Planning

Before you can begin the process, there are some preparatory activities that should be completed:

Authorization
The first task in strategic planning is obtaining the authorization to move forward with the process at all. It is important to involve all of the decision-makers in the strategic planning process, and discussing the scope of the plan and its benefits is one of the best ways to achieve “buy-in” for the entire process. Without buy-in, it will be difficult to fully implement the resulting plan.

Identification of Stakeholders
Another important step is to make sure the process considers all relevant points of view. This may seem easy, but, when you actually begin to list them, the number of people and organizations relying on your utility to be well-managed and provide affordable, high quality service is probably greater than you think. While some seem obvious, consider the following examples:
• Current users
• Employees
• Regulatory agencies, including PA DEP and US EPA
• Municipal government, conservation districts and planning agencies
• The Chamber of Commerce or local economic development agency
• Future users, including land owners and developers

This is not intended to be a complete list, only a guide, and not every group will require the same level of involvement in the strategic planning process, but understanding how each group might be impacted is important.

Planning Your TimetableDetermination of the Plan’s Time Frame
Strategic plans are generally long-term, usually five years, but a different time horizon may be more useful if you are aware of some specific event likely to occur just beyond the five-year planning period. If a significant expansion of the utility appears likely, five years may not be long enough.

Organization
How will the strategic plan be organized? Who will guide the process? Is it to be done by an outside professional or internal staff? What is the schedule? What will the final plan look like, and how will it be disseminated? Does it need some type of formal adoption or approval? If so, by whom?

Determining the “Vision”

In essence, visioning asks the question: What will the organization look like in the future? Visioning will supply the context for the other elements of the strategic plan. For a wastewater utility, the visioning process may actually be one of the most involved elements of the plan since this is where you try to get a peek at what’s around the corner. Unlike some businesses where visioning is a projection of some blend of marketing prowess, economic predictions and industry trends, each utility is unique because the factors that drive future events will impact it differently.

The task is made a bit easier if you divide visioning into an external scan and an internal scan. Although they may be related in many ways, the external scan looks at:Financial Reports

  • potential changes in the regulatory environment,
  • community growth and development,
  • changes in demographics,
  • future interest rates,
  • future construction costs,
  • the overall level of economic activity.

(Increased economic activity in nearby communities should also be considered since it may impact your service area.)

The internal scan will focus more on:

  • the needs of existing users and employees,
  • service improvements,
  • transparency,
  • facilities,
  • finances,
  • rates,
  • operating policies,
  • organizational structure.

These are but a few of the areas that need to be considered in some detail.

The visioning process is almost as diverse as the elements themselves. Clearly, information from outside the utility is necessary. This may include individual interviews with consultants, suppliers and community leaders. Telephone calls, questionnaires, online surveys, and specific messages printed on bill inserts can also solicit feedback from targeted stakeholders. Regardless of how it’s done, the result should be a clear and concise statement that reflects the major trends that are likely to drive the future direction of your utility. But, before you can get too specific, you should develop the broad organizational goals. This is best done with a mission statement.

Drafting a Mission StatementDrafting Your “Mission Statement”

I know the idea that you can somehow cram the entire essence of an organization into a couple of tightly worded sentences seems impossible. Some mission statements will run on for several paragraphs, but do they really provide more information about the philosophy or principles that govern the utility’s operations? Usually not. Instead, the discipline of packing an organization’s values into a few words may actually provide a better understanding of its goals. Here is an illustration of a short but insightful mission statement for a wastewater utility, courtesy of the Lancaster Area Sewer Authority:

“To provide quality service and apply technology to process wastewater so as to protect and enhance the environment and health and well-being of the community at a reasonable cost.”

The mission statement should not simply be a collection of carefully chosen words that project an image that isn’t consistent with the utility’s values; rather, creating the mission statement should foster a deeper understanding and commitment to those values. This, in turn, provides the benchmarks that measure success.

business-servicesIdentifying “Critical Success Factors”

The visioning process should identify the broad goals and major initiatives that need to be incorporated into the strategic plan. It is not important to determine their feasibility at this point; detailed examination of alternatives will be done later. Simply decide if they are consistent with the mission statement and are not mutually exclusive. Some likely success factors might include:

  • Achieving greater transparency.
  • Building up operating and capital reserve accounts.
  • Having all professional employees become certified in their specialty.
  • Exploring alternative billing and payment procedures.
  • Creating or reviewing emergency response procedures.
  • Reviewing or increasing use of technology to achieve greater efficiency.
  • Expanding facilities to accommodate expected population increases.
  • Developing an action plan should demographic changes result in reduced flows.

These are only illustrations; the vision and mission statements will help dictate the critical success factors that should be included in your plan. The key here is to keep the success factors general in nature but focused on specific identifiable outcomes. Another important consideration is quantifying what it means to be successful and the metrics for measurement.

From the above illustration, achieving greater transparency is a success factor, but what exactly does that mean? What is it that should be more transparent, and what are the limits of what is made publically available? Can it measured by the number of visits to your website, or does it mean the creation of a website? Is it measured by a fewer number of requests for specific information or telephone inquiries? How about the development of a newsletter? Is that something that most customers believe would be useful based on data collected during the visioning process?

Some critical success factors may not be determined directly. In the example above, data may not have been collected on customer’s preferences during the visioning process. In that case, the success factor of achieving greater transparency will need to be defined by some other precedent activity to measure the benefits of transparency, or it may be determined that transparency is simply a virtue for its own sake whose benefits may not be immediately measurable. In that instance, the precedent activity may be to look at industry practice and see how your current practices can be improved.

If you are getting the idea that developing the critical success factors is a time-consuming process that requires a lot of effort in order to be done correctly, you’re right. This is often the work of several individuals and should involve a team approach at least to direct the work. Care should be taken to assign responsibility for completing an assignment to someone who is involved in the overall planning effort. If not, they may not understand the actual goal and may simply complete a task.

Developing critical success factors, defining them, and providing metrics for measurement is at the very heart of the strategic planning effort. While strategies and actions will provide the “to-do list” and ultimately become the basis for the final report, they will be driven first by the critical success factors you’ve defined.

Developing “Strategies and Actions”

This step is where the plan is actually created. Critical success factors identify the areas where some action seems warranted; they take our broad goals and further define the “somewhere” we want to go. The next step is determining how to get there.

negotiating_at_the_deskAgain, using the transparency example, probably everyone will agree that organizational transparency is desirable, but someone might disagree with the type of information that is made available or with the level of training that may be necessary to organize and screen information. Cost is always a consideration when implementing changes.

Because there are generally many facets to each critical success factor, it is important to have several individuals involved in formulating the strategy for evaluation and implementation. This is often accomplished by group meetings, where each critical success factor is discussed. Questions will likely arise that cannot be answered without some further investigation, so tasks must be delegated to a smaller group or an individual for follow-up. In fact, most of the early efforts will be directed to developing the process to obtain the necessary information and assigning someone to gather and analyze it. The analysis is essential so that the success factor can be implemented in a way that achieves its intended purpose. It also provides documentation for any critical success factors that cannot be implemented.

Once the strategy for implementation is determined, specific detailed actions for implementation should be prepared. One of the most important decisions in this stage of the process is timing. You want to think about the best time to launch a new initiative or modify or eliminate an existing one.

Another important task is to identify someone to champion the implementation. Maybe there is one lead person or several depending on the type and number of tasks. If achieving the critical success factor requires technology changes, someone involved with maintaining that technology should be involved in the implementation. This may seem obvious, but sometimes third parties are retained for implementation, resulting in a loss of buy-in from those who will be responsible for making it all work.
schedule

Prioritizing Tasks and Designing an Implementation Schedule

Even though this article opened with a reference to a fairy tale, there should be no fantasy about implementation. It’s just as much work as each of the other elements — maybe more, since there are now clear ideas on how each goal is to be achieved and, of course, the devil is always in the details. Regardless of how thorough the analysis was, complications can be expected. Another frustration usually is that it takes longer to accomplish than originally believed.

In order to avoid this, one of the first steps to implementation is to determine the schedule. Unless there are very few and straightforward critical success factors, some effort needs to be expended in prioritizing each success factor for each of the broad goals identified in the vision. Often, once the strategic plan is formalized, a sense of urgency to implement its objectives is inevitable. This is understandable since the reason for the plan is generally to improve the utility’s operations, so why would you want to delay?

For one thing, it’s important to remember that the plan itself looks at a five-year time period, so that not all benefits will be immediately available. Also, events are constantly changing, so some of the fundamental assumptions that went into the plan may change. This may not affect the plan, but the implementation schedule should allow time for monitoring external changes nonetheless.

Another important consideration is the time staff has available to implement the plan. While the plan is being implemented, all other work must continue. Even if some of the heavy lifting is assigned to others, the utility’s staff needs to be involved at each step if they are expected to achieve the plan’s goals and provide necessary feedback.

microphoneCommunicating the Plan with Your Stakeholders

Okay: you have the vision, you’ve determined the critical success factors, you’ve developed strategies for implementation, and you’ve created the implementation schedule. You have assigned staff to implement the various strategies in order to monitor progress and make sure that each strategy achieves its desired goal. One question remains: What does the final plan look like? Is it a printed document, a slide presentation published on your website, or an internal spreadsheet that serves as a checklist for monitoring implementation?

Like all the other aspects of the plan, the process that rolls out the plan is determined by the goals of the strategic plan itself. If the plan is centered on internal improvements, then employee meetings with handouts may be the most effective means of communicating the plan’s objectives and the strategies designed to implement them. If there are elements of the plan that are service-related – that impact your customers or the community at large – more formal printed materials may need to be prepared. Meetings with important relevant stakeholders may also be useful, especially if there are some financial impacts associated with the plan that they are expected to share.

The only thing that’s constant is change. Absent a crystal ball, tarot cards, or an Ouija board, a well-thought-out strategic plan is the best means of seeing the future. Even if it misses the mark, knowing why it missed and what parts of the utility may be affected is an important benefit that makes the exercise worthwhile. At the very least, developing the plan will require policy-makers, managers and staff to consider each other’s points of view and understand how the customers and community view your utility.

Building Voter Support for Stormwater Fees

Hand vote

Many local officials realize the need to improve stormwater management to protect water quality, but fear constituents would oppose a new fee for stormwater services. Experience shows a transparent approach that involves community stakeholders can build consensus.

by: Adrienne Vicari, P.E.
 

(These tips are excerpted from an article we published in the October 2015 issue of Pennsylvania Township News magazine and are used here with their permission. Reprints of the entire article are available upon request.)

Increasingly stringent stormwater regulations are causing municipalities to think about how they can fund badly needed stormwater system improvements in their community. Many municipalities are considering funding their program through user fees charged by a municipal authority, as authorized by Act 68 of 2013, but some municipal leaders worry that a new fee may be unpopular with residents and businesses.

Though stormwater utility fees are still largely unchartered territory in Pennsylvania (less than a dozen communities have established one here), the use of dedicated stormwater utilities and stormwater fees is a nationwide movement that has seen steady growth over the past four decades. Western Kentucky University reports that there are more than 1,500 stormwater utilities throughout the United States and Canada, serving communities as small as 88 people to more than 3 million. Their success in building consensus among constituents for stormwater fees can show local municipalities a path to approval in their own community.

HRG has used information from the Western Kentucky University study, the nationwide non-profit Water Words That Work, and several case studies published by the EPA (along with our own experience implementing stormwater authorities) to come up with several tips on how municipalities can build local support for stormwater user fees.

 

  1. Make sure you have identified and involved all the potential stakeholders – even those who oppose the formation of a utility – and form a stakeholder advisory committee. If you don’t attempt to address the concerns of your opposition in these committee meetings, they can come back to haunt you later when it comes time to pass the resolution. According to the EPA case studies, this is what happened in Dover, New Hampshire, and Huntsville, Alabama. Both communities had small advisory committees, but they did not engage all community groups. Though there was unanimous consent among the committee members to form a stormwater utility, the opposition of certain community groups who had not been represented on the committee ultimately drowned out their voices, and the municipal leadership declined to pass the resolution.
  2. Make the stakeholder committee an open forum where people feel comfortable expressing all points of view. Again, you want to deal with any potential obstacles proactively, rather than be blindsided by them in the final stretch. Stakeholder advisory committee meetings are more conducive to problem-solving and negotiating in a deliberative way than public meetings are. By including your opposition early in the process and giving everyone a chance to speak freely, you ensure that major obstacles to support will have been addressed before a public vote.
  3. Have your stakeholder committee discuss the stormwater program and what it can accomplish first. Don’t bring up funding till you’ve established a need for improvements and motivated people to support them. People need to know what they’re getting before they can be motivated to hand over their money.
  4. Clearly define the benefits of the program in all public outreach efforts. Tell people exactly what improvements you intend to make with the money you raise, and quantify the benefits of those improvements whenever possible. For example: “This project will reduce the likelihood of flooding along Main Street by 75%.”
  5. Show, don’t just tell. Visuals are particularly persuasive. Water Words That Work found that showing people photographs of how the fee would be used had the single most dramatic effect of any information provided in gaining approval of the fee.
  6. Choose your words carefully. Name the fee to clearly convey the service you are providing. “Stormwater management” is too vague and largely meaningless to the average person, but “clean water protection” has obvious value. In the Water Words That Work survey, “pollution control and flood reduction fee” tested better than any other term containing the words stormwater, authority or utility.
  7. Emphasize fairness. People generally believe that those who use a service most should pay more for it, so show them how your fee ensures that is the case. Explain why it’s important that non-profits pay the fee because they, too, contribute to stormwater discharges (often more than residents because of their large impervious parking areas). Tell them about credits that people can receive if they lower their stormwater impact by installing green infrastructure on their property. In general, people perceive fees based on actual impervious area to be the most fair and equitable (as opposed to a flat rate), but some of the communities EPA studied did successfully enact flat rates with effective public education about the reasons why that option was chosen.
  8. Demonstrate cost-effectiveness and be transparent about finances. If a stormwater utility is truly the best approach for your community, the numbers will convey that, and detailed economic studies are always an integral part of the planning process. Use those numbers to prove that the stormwater fee will better accomplish program goals than general fund revenue or any other option available. Voters can often be mistrustful of a government’s ability to use funds wisely. Being transparent about program finances (how the fee was determined, how it will be used) eases minds and reduces the chance of a legal challenge.
  9. Define this as a local solution to a local problem. Avoid talk about state and federal mandates or general environmental goals. If flooding is a recurring problem in your community, show how this program will reduce that problem. If pollution is a concern, talk specifically about keeping local waterways clean: the stream families teach their children to fish in, the lake where they go swimming.

Determining whether a stormwater utility is the most effective way to fund infrastructure needs in your community is a complex process that requires dual expertise in civil engineering and financial consulting. Unfortunately, some communities are afraid to even investigate the option because they believe their constituents will never approve of a stormwater fee.   In communities where utilizing general tax revenue is not the best fit approach, research by EPA and others cited in this article shows that an effective public outreach program, which includes key stakeholder groups in the earliest planning stages, can be successful in persuading people to accept stormwater management fees.


VicariAdrienne Vicari, P.E., is the financial services practice area leader at HRG. In this role, she has helped the firm provide strategic financial planning and grant administration services to numerous municipal and municipal authority clients. She is also serving as project manager for several projects involving the creation of stormwater authorities or the addition of stormwater to the charter of existing authorities throughout Pennsylvania. Contact Adrienne about stormwater authorities.

Act 73 Compliance: Calculating Fair Annual Rental Value for Water Systems

by: Russ McIntosh

Financial Reports

 

This article was published by Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Association in the August 2015 issue of their magazine, The Authority.

Does your authority lease facilities from its incorporating municipality? If so, your lease payments should be carefully documented and calculated to ensure you are in compliance with Act 73, or a potential legal challenge could result.

Background

Passed in 2012, Act 73 added Section 5612 (a.1) to the Municipal Authorities Act, restricting the use of authority funds for

“any purpose other than a service or project directly related to the mission or purpose of the authority as set forth in the articles of incorporation or in the resolution or ordinance establishing the authority…”

Some authorities are obligated to make lease payments to the municipality that owns the facilities they use to provide service. While payments for the use of facilities operated by the authority to provide its services would seem to satisfy the “mission or purpose” requirement, deciding on the amount of that payment could be problematic. If the fee is too high – beyond a fair market value – rate payers could argue that the excess funds are not being used for a purpose directly related to the authority’s mission. And under Act 73, they could make that argument in court:

“A ratepayer to an authority shall have a cause of action in the court of common pleas where the authority is located to seek the return of money expended in violation of paragraph  (1) from the recipient.”

Operating authorities that lease their facilities are not as common as straight operating or leaseback authorities. Although there have been no legal challenges to date, other recent changes in the act that allow for stormwater authorities may expand the applicability of the Act 73 amendments.

Act 68 of 2013 added Section 5607 (a) 18 to the act and extends the power of authorities to allow for:

“Storm water planning, management and implementation as defined in the articles of incorporation by the governing body. Authorities, existing as of the effective date of this paragraph, already operating storm water controls as part of a combined sewer system, sanitary sewer system or flood control project may continue to operate those projects.”

This may generate a need for more authorities to lease their facilities since the majority of storm water facilities are owned by the municipalities who remain responsible for compliance with their Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems (MS4s) permit. Authorities have the ability to impose fees and charges for storm water service, which may provide a convenient vehicle for funding these systems with user charges instead of general fund tax revenues without having to actually transfer ownership of the facilities. Authorities may also be useful in establishing drainage basinwide charges without having to seek regulatory approval.

Fair Annual Rental Value Calculation in Practice: Reading Area Water Authority

Recently HRG was selected by the Center for Excellence at Albright College to perform a study for the Reading Area Water Authority (RAWA). The work required HRG to calculate the fair annual rental value of the water facilities RAWA leases from the City of Reading. The calculation was needed in order to make sure that the payments required under RAWA’s lease with the city met the requirements of the Municipal Authorities Act as amended by Act 73 of 2012.

The mission of the Center for Excellence in Local Government at Albright College is “to maintain and enhance the quality of life in Berks County by assisting municipal leaders in meeting the changing needs of their communities.” RAWA is an operating authority that serves a population of approximately 150,000 in the city and portions of the surrounding municipalities. It delivers approximately 15 million gallons of water each day and has an annual budget of $27,000,000. It leases facilities from the city, and lease payments to the city represent about one-third of its annual budget.

Approach and Methodology

While a few systems have been leased to third parties such as the Allentown wastewater system to the Lehigh County Authority and the Borough of Middletown’s water and wastewater systems to United Water of PA, these leases have an entirely different objective and a structure that provides an up-front, lump-sum payment for a fixed term. There is no reliable public market that determines the “fair annual rental value” of a utility system and no single formula for determining this value. Instead, fair annual value calculations must consider:

  • The value of the assets employed in rendering the service
  • The existing financial structure of the utility
  • Market interest rates
  • Opportunity cost

A lease payment that represents the fair rental value of the system, the amount that a willing lessee would be willing to pay a willing lessor on an annual basis, needs to consider a variety of factors.

These factors include:

  • Asset base
  • Outstanding debt
  • Necessary reinvestments
  • Return on investment
  • Cash flow

In the case of Reading, the city owns the facilities and made significant investments in the water system over time in order to comply with regulatory mandates and protect the public health and safety of those who purchase water from RAWA. From the city’s point of view, the fair annual rental value should be based on the value of the assets and a reasonable rate of return consistent with their risk. It should also consider likely future events, such as the need to make additional investments to keep facilities updated and to accommodate the future growth. Such calculations are made independent of the actual revenue being generated by those assets.

From RAWA’s point of view, the fair annual rental value needed to reflect the system’s cash flow or user rates would need to be increased. RAWA’s mission is to charge users reasonable and uniform rates consistent with the level of service provided. Rates and charges are RAWA’s only source of income and must generate sufficient funds each year to pay all the expenses of the system, including operation and maintenance expenses, debt service, the annual rental payment to the city, and necessary capital investments.

Balancing both points of view, our analysis considered the current net book values of the water system’s assets and also considered the current replacement value of those assets. Other assets such as water rights were considered in the calculation where appropriate. Assets were looked at in total and adjusted for investments in facilities financed by RAWA bonds. Appropriate rates of return were calculated and applied.

We also considered the projected cash flow from operations using current rates adjusted for cash needed for reinvestment in capital assets. Future rate increases, the impact of customer growth and regulatory, environmental, and safety compliance were important factors in determining future cash flows. We selected a five year period, 2015 through 2019, in order to measure the sensitivity of the annual fair rental value of these factors on water rates.

Using Multiple Calculation Methods to Determine Fair Annual Rental Values

HRG used multiple methodologies in order to blend the desire of the lessor (the city) to obtain the highest rent possible with that of the lessee (RAWA) to provide service at reasonable and uniform rates while meeting all financial obligations. In this way, we tried to approximate the amount that a willing lessee would be willing to pay a willing lessor.

  • Book Value Method: HRG evaluated the net asset values as the basis for calculating the fair annual rental, then applied rates of return commonly allowed in regulated utility cases for similar municipally owned water utilities. Typically, the PUC distinguishes between capital provided through debt financing and capital provided by investors when considering the overall return on investment that can be included in the rates. Various utility specific factors are considered, and expert testimony may be required when determining the rates of return allowed.
  • Replacement Value Method: Our analysis also considered replacement cost as a basis for calculating the fair rental value of the system. Replacement value, in this instance, is used to approximate the opportunity cost associated with holding an asset that has appreciated in value. It is important to note that in order to actually realize the benefit of the appreciated asset values, it would be necessary to convert those values into cash or other assets. Accordingly, our approach did not simply apply the rate of return on equity to the equity value created through use of replacement cost; rather, net equity was determined and a composite rate applied.
  • Cash Flow Method: Like our other approaches, this method has its limitations, since available cash flow measures the difference between revenues received and expenses paid, including necessary reinvestments in the system included in the current budget or future debt service. It is sensitive to changes in the rates charged for services, general price level changes and any imbedded operating inefficiency. In order to compensate for the limitations in the cash flow approach outlined above, we obtained water rate information from surrounding water systems and systems serving metropolitan areas similar to Reading in order to measure RAWA’s ability to increase rates to meet current and future lease rental costs.

Each method represents a valid approach for a particular purpose. Investors in investor-owned utilities are compensated for their investment in two ways: the rate of return allowed and collected through the utility’s rate structure (which is often paid out as a cash dividend) and the change in the value of their shares of stock. This is not true for municipally owned utilities where there is no capital stock or dividends. There is no ability to “sell” the equity created by an increase in the utility’s economic value without impacting the ratepayers.

Applying return on the current replacement cost method allows for the introduction of the increased economic value into the calculation. And, as can be seen in the table below, the values are higher even after calculating the return on the net realizable value. However, it is our belief that the cash flow method, while not perfect, provides the best overall measure of the current economic value on which to base the annual fair rental value of the water system.

Our use of multiple calculations provided a range of fair annual rental values. This was especially useful when looking at these calculations for a multi-year period.

Calculating Fair Annual Rental Value

Based on our analysis, we concluded that the annual fair rental value for the water system is $9,275,000 per year. This value represents the projected annual average cash flow value of the system yielding an average rate of return on the net book value of the city’s investment in net assets of 6.83% or 3.03% on net replacement book value. The return on net book value of 6.83% is within the rate of return range for investor-owned public water utilities. The lower rate of return calculated using replacement values is consistent with market rates for safe investments in today’s economic environment such as 20-year US Treasury Bonds.

Conclusion

While our study addressed the specific needs of RAWA and the city, each utility system is different. The passage of Act 68 authorizing stormwater authorities will likely involve transfer or lease of existing, municipality-owned stormwater facilities to an authority. Given the language of the Act 73 amendment, some due diligence would seem to be warranted when payments are being made by an authority to a municipality. Not all annual fair rental value calculations will require the use of multiple methods. However, in order to avoid a potential legal challenge, proactive authorities should examine their lease payments to ensure they are in compliance with the law.

The Potential Advantages of a Stormwater Utility for Financing Your Stormwater Management Needs

by: Adrienne Vicari, P.E.

West Clarion University Pond

Two years after the passage of Act 68, many municipalities still have legitimate concerns about whether a stormwater authority would be right for their community. In a previous article, HRG addressed concerns about public opposition, up-front costs, and a loss of control over the infrastructure covered under the MS4 permit. In today’s article, we discuss the potential advantages of stormwater authorities to municipalities searching for ways to finance their stormwater management programs.

Advantage #1: Stormwater authorities enable you to collect money from tax-exempt users.

Churches and non-profit organizations like hospitals contribute a lot of stormwater runoff to the local watershed, but a tax would never collect any revenue from them because they are tax-exempt. By using the stormwater authority structure, you can charge fees to these users and collect their fair share contribution to stormwater management efforts.

Advantage #2: Stormwater authorities can collect fees from multiple municipalities who may be contributing runoff to their watershed; municipalities cannot charge anyone outside their own borders.

Political boundaries and watersheds seldom coincide. Stormwater is not neatly contained by political boundaries, and watersheds often cross through more than one municipality. But townships and cities cannot charge other local governments for stormwater management under state law. A multi-municipal (or joint) stormwater authority, however, can be set up to serve an area that extends beyond the boundaries of a single municipality, which enables everyone within a particular watershed to contribute to the stormwater management services it requires.

Advantage #3: Stormwater authority fees are more equitable than a property tax.

As stated in #1 and #2, stormwater utility fees ensure that everyone who contributes to a community’s stormwater pays for the services they use (even tax-exempt organizations, particularly if a utility is set up on a watershed-wide basis).

But stormwater fees are also much more flexible and responsive to the true nature of stormwater than a straight property tax would be. The value of someone’s land has little to do with how much stormwater it creates, so a property tax is inherently unfair for this purpose. A property could be appraised at a high value and contribute very little to stormwater, but an experienced financial consultant can help set up an authority’s rate structure based on the quantity and/or quality of runoff a property creates (rather than charging a flat fee or basing it on acreage).

A municipality can also offer credits to property owners who install best management practices for controlling runoff. (This has the added bonus of encouraging good behavior: inspiring people to install stormwater control measures like rain gardens, buffers, etc. on their property.)

Thus, a well-designed stormwater utility ensures everyone pays according to how much he or she uses the service.

Advantage #4: Stormwater authorities provide a dedicated revenue stream for stormwater improvements.

Relying on general tax revenue for stormwater improvements isn’t practical for some communities. There simply isn’t enough money to cover all of the needs the municipality must address, and stormwater often falls to the bottom of the list because money is allocated to more high profile projects such as a bridge replacement or pavement rehabilitation. Unless there is major flooding, stormwater is often forgotten and doesn’t receive the financial attention it needs.

With a dedicated stormwater fee, the money is there to maintain, repair and replace stormwater infrastructure on a proactive basis, rather than waiting till flooding causes expensive damage or impacts public safety.

Advantage #5: A dedicated revenue stream for stormwater can improve the finances of a municipality.

It can do so in several ways. First, now that the municipality no longer directs tax revenue to stormwater management, it has more tax dollars available for its other priorities.

Second, debt associated with stormwater improvements is no longer considered direct municipal debt because it can be self-liquidated by the authority’s revenue stream. Therefore, the stormwater debt doesn’t count towards the municipality’s borrowing limit, and its impact on the municipality’s bond rating is reduced. (Since municipal authorities are not subject to the same restrictions on borrowing and bond rating concerns as municipalities, they are often able to implement larger projects or make improvements in a timelier manner than a municipality could.)

Third, many agencies that offer grants and loans expect the municipality to put up matching funds, which is hard to do when you don’t have a dedicated stormwater revenue stream. Even if matching funds are not an official requirement of the grant or loan, most funding agencies place a higher preference on recipients who have money available for the infrastructure because they have a greater confidence in their ability to complete the project if there are issues and to maintain it after it’s done.

Advantage #6: Stormwater authorities are better positioned to raise rates than municipalities are to raise taxes if stormwater obligations increase.

Tax increases are not popular politically, and they are hard to pass. As stormwater infrastructure needs change, municipalities may need a revenue source that is flexible enough to meet those changing demands.

Every municipality’s financial situation and stormwater needs are different, so it’s wise to seek the counsel of a consultant with dual expertise in engineering and financial consulting to determine if a stormwater utility is right for your community. If it is, your consultant can help you organize a program that maximizes an authority’s potential advantages: providing a dedicated revenue stream for stormwater management that is more equitable than other funding sources and freeing up the municipality’s tax dollars for other priorities without adding to its direct debt or negatively impacting its bond rating.

 


VicariAdrienne Vicari, P.E., is the financial services practice area leader at HRG. In this role, she has helped the firm provide strategic financial planning and grant administration services to numerous municipal and municipal authority clients. She is also serving as project manager for several projects involving the creation of stormwater authorities or the addition of stormwater to the charter of existing authorities throughout Pennsylvania. Contact Adrienne about stormwater authorities.

How to Get Grant Money For Your Infrastructure with Asset Management & Capital Improvement Planning

Considering a Stormwater Authority? 12 Steps to Help Townships Make the Decision

 

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This article was published in the Winter 2014 issue of the Township Engineer newsletter, as produced by the PA State Association of Township Supervisors.

Since the signing of Senate Bill 1261 (Act 68 of 2013) last September, many townships have been discussing the benefits and feasibility of using an authority to address stormwater issues versus continuing to use their established policies, practices, and funding sources. As you might imagine, there is no single, simple answer to this question. Like many other aspects of township administration, each community’s needs are unique, and any one-size-fits-all approach seldom does.

One reason for this is that stormwater management is a function of each township’s location in the watershed, its unique topography and land use, and its demographics. Often, the existing stormwater facilities are passive, sitting idle much of the time until a large rain event occurs. Unlike water or wastewater utilities, where most people can see a direct benefit, stormwater management is seldom seen as a service. Also, stormwater issues are often addressed through the land development process and are not perceived to have any ongoing maintenance costs, which can make separate billing for this service much more difficult.

There is no doubt that Act 68 was designed to expand the funding choices available to municipalities for stormwater management and better distribute the costs among those who are most responsible for creating issues. One challenge that townships will encounter is the amount of preplanning required to decide exactly what service the stormwater authority is to provide, who will benefit, the types of facilities that are needed, and how costs will be calculated and apportioned.

Determining benefits and costs can be especially tricky in townships that have multiple drainage basins, privately owned stormwater facilities or those located on private property, a large number of tax-exempt properties, or stormwater that originates in a neighboring municipality. Successful stormwater management will include a blend of fees, inspections, ordinance enforcement, and community education and support. The exact combination of measures that’s right for your township will require evaluation, analysis, and sorting through a lot of data.

Evaluating stormwater management need
As you consider your township’s stormwater management needs, the following 12 steps will guide you in asking the right questions, organize your thinking, and help you collect the necessary data to make an informed decision.

  1. Conduct, review, and update an inventory of township-owned stormwater facilities. Your township needs to know what it owns now and how much it is spending to maintain existing facilities.
  2. Identify facilities located on private property that are directly connected to township-owned facilities. While the township may not be spending money on privately owned facilities, it has a vested interest in their proper operation and maintenance. The township needs to determine whether it has sufficient power under existing ordinances to ensure that these facilities are being maintained properly and will operate effectively when needed.
  3. Identify facilities located on private property that are not directly connected to township-owned facilities and evaluate the ability of the owners to properly maintain them. Again, does the township have sufficient power under existing ordinances to make sure these facilities are being maintained properly and will operate effectively if needed?
  4. Review and revise existing policies and ordinances that require private owners of stormwater facilities to properly maintain them, and establish fines for noncompliance. For example, if facilities are owned by a private entity, such as a corporate landlord or a property owners’ association, and are not properly maintained, should the renters or residents be asked to pay a stormwater fee if the township does not assume ownership of these facilities? This may take the form of a separate charge to individual homeowners whose property is served by such facilities.
  5. Revise the inventory as needed to include any facilities for which the township has or will assume responsibility.
  6. Regularly review your inventory and assess the general condition of stormwater facilities to determine future projects. This will provide the basis for the township’s stormwater management capital plan.
  7. Estimate the timing and cost of future projects and identify the need for financing. If a substantial amount of debt must be incurred to finance additions or upgrades, does the township have sufficient borrowing capacity to incur that amount of debt?
  8. Identify the township’s current operating costs for existing stormwater management facilities, including labor, materials, and services.
  9. Estimate future annual operating costs and any annual debt service costs associated with existing or planned stormwater facilities.
  10. Discuss the public’s perception of stormwater management’s benefits and any negative impacts of using general tax revenue versus a dedicated user fee. One of the important elements here is the percentage of “uncollectable” fees versus the amount of revenue that may be lost due to tax-exempt properties.
  11. Determine the benefit of a separate stormwater authority and what form it will take — operating or leaseback. One factor to consider is the regulatory environment. The township will always remain responsible for the proper enactment and enforcement of state and federal regulations, so its relationship with an authority must be cooperative. It is also likely that, given the relatively short history of stormwater user fees in Pennsylvania, the township may be asked to guarantee the authority’s debt.
  12. Be prepared to advance funds to accomplish many of these steps before an authority can begin generating revenue. Act 68 of 2013 amended the Municipality Authorities Act to include under the purposes and powers of a municipal authority “stormwater management planning and projects.” No other sections of the act were amended. Consequently, stormwater authorities have the same powers and limitations placed on all authorities. Charges must be uniform and reasonable.  This means that before any billing can occur, the creating body must identify the scope of service and the facilities that are included; determine their costs of acquisition, operation, and maintenance; and adopt a basis for billing. Also, authorities may only bill for service they render; they have no power to “tax” for the general good. Therefore, the township may have to put up funds initially to get the ball rolling.

Tailor the steps to your township
The steps presented above are simply guidelines, and not all steps may be necessary for all townships. Some townships, for example, may find that a great deal of time will be necessary to complete some of the steps. In other cases, it may not be necessary to conduct the complete inventory if a township already has a stormwater facilities capital plan or if all such facilities are privately owned.

Townships should carefully consider the benefits and risks involved in establishing a stormwater authority, and these steps may help them to do so. Remember that the intent is not to expend more time and money on stormwater analysis, but simply to ask basic questions and decide what direction looks most beneficial in the long term.