Description: This workshop will introduce participants to a wide array of financial topics from rates to budgets to financial health metrics. There will also be an opportunity to be introduced to a financial assessment tool created by the SW EFC, available at no cost to you, which can be used to understand your utility’s finances. Topics include:

• Budgets: Why we do them, how we use them
• Chart of Accounts: what is it and what is it for?
• The difference between revenue and income
• The difference between expenditures and expenses
• What are assets and liabilities and how are they recorded?
• Financial Reports (Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet) and how to read them
• User rate structures and how they impact revenue, expenses, and affordability
• Financial Health Indicators (ratios) and what they mean

Presenters: Heather Himmelberger, Director, Southwest Environmental Finance Center & Luke Andrews, Research Scientist, Southwest Environmental Finance Center & Sandra Blanton