A new report issued by the Johnson Foundation called Financing Sustainable Water Infrastructure concludes that the financial health of our water systems is directly linked to their long-term sustainability. Continued…
StepWise Knowledge Center
It’s that time of year again, and ballot initiatives are all the rage. There are bound to be several dozen all over the country, but there are two in Colorado in particular that could have a direct impact on water utilities in that state, and perhaps downstream. Although they are still under some legal scrutiny as to form and such, Initiatives No. 3 and No. 45, called the “Public Trust Initiatives”, would amend the Colorado constitution to place all of the water rights in Colorado into a public trust. The full text of the initiatives can be viewed here. Continued…
Frequent readers of our blog will know that we often discuss the gap that exists between the need for capital investment in the water/wastewater sector, and the availability of both the necessary capital as well as the ability to repay debt. Indeed, our most recent blog post, Water Rate Affordability (Dec. 26, 2011), presents a case that the ability to pay (i.e. affordability) is shrinking along with decreasing household incomes and rapidly expanding water/wastewater utility bills. Continued…
In a couple of presentations I’ve given in the past few months, I’ve talked about one of the key drivers in the water and wastewater utility industry being a pending shortfall in the labor pool. One of the leading indicators of a shortage is not the lack of employable people, but rather the lack of skilled labor to fill specific position requirements. Continued…
A common complaint from water and sewer utility customers – in fact one of if not THE top complaint – is that the rates are just too high. StepWise created a Google RSS feed (shown on our home page) that attests to these complaints on a daily basis. On an average day, we see at least a dozen news articles about local water/sewer utilities increasing their rates with the main storyline being the resulting public outrage. Any reader of this blog will know that the probability of increases to your local water and sewer rates is something that approaches 100%. The question isn’t “if” the rates will increase, but rather “when?” Continued…
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