by Shadi Eskaf | Mar 3, 2017 | Financial Management, Rates
What happens if a water utility collects less in revenues than it pays in expenditures in one year? It will raise some alarms, but some utilities might be able to weather that shortfall by dipping into their reserves and bounce back the following year. But what...
by UNCEFC | Feb 16, 2017 | Affordability, Financial Management, Rates
Accurately identifying vulnerable groups and their commitment to pay, or incapacity to pay, is a timeless challenge in household water services. When consumers pay for household water service delivery, they are paying for the water, its delivery to their home, the...
by UNCEFC | Nov 30, 2016 | Financial Management, Rates
For water and sewer utilities regulated by a state’s public utilities commission (PUC), mounting a rate case can be an expensive proposition. In fact, for some particularly small utilities, mounting a rate case can be more expensive than operating the utility for many...
by UNCEFC | Oct 12, 2016 | Financial Management, Rates
The Environmental Finance Center currently produces statewide water and wastewater rates dashboards for 12 states across the US. We collect a lot of data on water system finance and management to build these dashboards, and those data can tell interesting stories...
by Stacey Berahzer | Jun 20, 2016 | Financial Management
Water and Wastewater utilities receive “credit ratings” just as a private individual has a FICO® score. While organizations like the Fair Isaac Corporation calculate personal credit scores, for entities like local government utilities, the three groups that generate...
by Jeff Hughes | Jan 28, 2016 | Asset Management, Financial Management
As this blog is being written, water and community managers from across the country are talking about the water crisis that is occurring in Flint, Michigan. The City made a decision several years ago to discontinue buying Lake Huron water from Detroit in favor of an...
