by Allison Perch | Dec 2, 2015 | Financial Management, Utility Management
What can a small town do when the financial health of its water system is at risk? This is the question that Stephanie Finch, the town clerk and treasurer for the Village of Magdalena in New Mexico, faced in early 2015. Magdalena has a population of 1,200 and its...
by Glenn Barnes | Nov 23, 2015 | Financial Management
At our workshops and through our discussions with water systems during technical assistance work, many water systems, in particular small systems, ask what seems like a simple question: “Are our rates right?” I suspect our initial answer is somewhat unsatisfying: “It...
by Stacey Berahzer | Nov 17, 2015 | Financial Management
About 96% of the population in Puerto Rico receives water from the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA). But the other 4% of the population is supplied by about 240 very small water systems. In teaching workshops this year in Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia and...
by Glenn Barnes | Oct 1, 2015 | Financial Management
In previous posts, we outlined how to use the financial statements of a water or wastewater system to calculate the key financial indicators of operating ratio (a measure of self-sufficiency), debt service coverage ratio (a measure of a system’s ability to pay its...
by Shadi Eskaf | Sep 9, 2015 | Access to Wastewater Funding Sources, Access to Water Funding Sources
According to data collected and published by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), federal, state, and local governments in the United States spent more than $2.2 trillion in the last 59 years on operations, maintenance, and capital infrastructure of water and...
