Facilities Financing Issues
Checklist Companion Report Released in OrlandoAMSA's Privatization Workgroup has completed a companion report to the highly successful, "Evaluating Privatization: An AMSA Checklist." The new publication, titled, "Managed Competition: Developing and Responding to RFQs & RFPs," was recently released during the Association's February 1997 Winter Conference, Evaluating Privatization II: Reinventing Clean Water Services in a Competitive Environment. The report addresses necessary preparation for managed competition and relationships with elected officials, employees, the public and the media. It also examines the development of RFQs/RFPs, responding to RFQs/RFPs, and evaluating offers. CONTACT: Christy Kettell, AMSA 202/833-3692.
AMSA Releases 1996 Financial Survey
AMSA's Facilities Financing Committee has completed and released its "1996 Financial Survey -- A National Survey of Municipal Wastewater Management Financing and Trends," which provides an overview of municipal wastewater financing and trends, including user charges, per capita debt, per capita needs, and operations and maintenance expenditures. The survey indicates that the nation's largest publicly-owned treatment works are providing significantly higher levels of treatment, greater conventional pollutant removal efficiency, and reduced influent metals loadings than they were three years ago. The report updates and expands upon six previous surveys and is intended to be used as a tool to guide national, state, and local policy development. Some of the findings of the 1996 Financial Survey include: (1) more than 90 percent of responding agencies provide secondary treatment or greater, and at least 90 percent of their flows are treated to at least secondary levels, (2) more than 30 percent of the agencies provide advanced secondary or tertiary treatment, (3) the loadings of nine metals surveyed show an overall reduction of 54 percent since the 1986 survey, pointing to the success of pollution prevention, pretreatment and public education programs, (4) Staffing per capita has decreased by almost 20 percent since 1990, (5) user charges have increased as a percentage of revenue from 51.9 to 60 percent since the 1993 survey, (6) user charges have increased 2.6 times the rate of inflation over the last five years, (7) operations and maintenance expenditures have increased to more than 43 percent of total expenditures, while capital improvement and reserve expenditures have decreased to about 33 percent, (8) the median per capita debt of responding agencies has doubled since 1990, and (8) average five-year per capita needs have decreased by more than 20 percent. CONTACTS: Brian Crewdson, Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility 907/786-5511, or Mark Hoeke, AMSA 202/ 833-9106.
Related Items of Interest
The Council of Infrastructure Financing Authorities (CIFA) recently released a document titled, "An Analysis of State Bond Banks." The document is based on a CIFA survey of state bond banks. Copies of the document are available upon request. Call CIFA at 202/371-9694, or fax a request to 202/371-6601.
Results of the 1996 AMSA Index were published in the March 1997 Clean Water News and are included in the 1996 AMSA Financial Survey appendices. CONTACT: Mark Hoeke, AMSA 202/833-9106.
EPA recently published its "Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey: First Report to Congress", January 1997 (EPA 812-R-97-001). The report describes the findings of a two-year study on the nation's drinking water infrastructure needs. The survey estimates a total drinking water infrastructure need of $138.4 billion over 20 years. Copies of the document can be obtained through the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) at 1-800-553-NTIS.