Tag: affordability (Page 2 of 5)

What’s Trending? A Look Into North Carolina Household Water Bills and the Income to Pay

The 2019 North Carolina Water and Wastewater Rates Dashboard was deployed just over a month ago, marking another year in a long partnership between the Environmental Finance Center at UNC-Chapel Hill, the North Carolina League of Municipalities, and the North Carolina Division of Water Infrastructure. One of the benefits of such a long and successful partnership is the wealth of historic rates data.

The Rates Dashboard provides an up-to-date look at rates and financial sustainability indicators for utilities around the state, but it is merely a snapshot. By looking at trends in rates and demographic factors, such as income, the numbers and changes start to tell a story. A trends analysis was produced for a recent course on Water and Wastewater Finance at the UNC School of Government, looking at rates from 2009-2018, EPA SDWIS Service Population data from 2009-2018, and income, from US Census American Community Surveys, from 2007-2017. The figures below are adapted from that analysis. The analysis is restricted to utilities that have participated across all years and availability of data. By looking at the overall trend rather than the specific values, the resulting patterns can provide considerations for utilities across the state. Continue reading

New Year, New Updates

Updates for Navigating Legal Pathways to Fund Rate-Funded Customer Assistance Programs

In 2017, the Environmental Finance Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill led a team of experts in summarizing legal barriers and opportunities to establish customer assistance programs using rate revenue, resulting in Navigating Legal Pathways to Fund Rate-Funded Customer Assistance Programs. Below is a brief summary of noteworthy changes that have taken place since that report was published in July 2017.

As water and wastewater prices continue to increase, due to a variety of factors, more utilities may find the need to establish assistance programs for some of their customers. In light of this and due to the passing and amending of new/old legislation, the EFC periodically updates all current state and territory summaries, and additionally, will be adding summaries for the other U.S. territories not previously included. Continue reading

This Week in Water Affordability News (and Perspectives)

Interested in the challenge of protecting public and environmental health without losing sight of the burden those goals may place on some segments of our society?  The affordability challenge sits at the intersection of efforts to assure adequate investment in critical public health infrastructure with social and equity concerns and three recent pieces that came across my virtual desk over the last few weeks illustrate different perspectives related to the same challenge.

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Clean Water Access Challenges in the United States

Water and sanitation access challenges are often thought of in the extremeslack of a clean water source in a village or community or lack of indoor plumbing in homes. But the reality is that many individuals living in or around some of the wealthiest jurisdictions in the United States, with some of the most sophisticated drinking water and wastewater systems and infrastructure, suffer from significant access challenges as well.

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The Gray Area in Funding Affordability Programs

Why Water or Wastewater Utilities in Many States May Be Apprehensive to Fund Affordability Programs with Rate Revenue

One of the reports recently completed at the Environmental Finance Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel provides an analysis of the legal and policy environment surrounding rate-setting for water and wastewater utilities in all fifty states, as well as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. The report, Navigating Legal Pathways to Rate-Funded Customer Assistance Programs, attempts to answer the question of whether, state by state, water and wastewater utilities can implement assistance programs for low-income customers, where these programs are funded with rate revenue. However, after researching and drafting the summaries for each state, the black and white answers we were looking for, have turned out to be in fact, mostly gray. That is, in most states, there is not a clearly defined path that water and wastewater utilities can follow to legally fund affordability programs with rate revenue. Thus, despite the importance of ensuring affordable water for all, there are many utilities which don’t have these types of cross-subsidized affordability programs, perhaps, in part, due to this legal uncertainty. So why are some states black and white, while others remain gray?

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