In March, OWASA's Water Tastes Like Chlorine (And Other Community Survey Learnings)

Question: In your opinion, what does OWASA do exceptionally well? Answer: 'Allows users to track water usage and see what they're being charged for; service is top-notch. You can always reach someone at the office if you need to. Even emergencies seem to be handled well (ie water main break a couple years back).' Answer: 'Community service. I love how easy it is to include a monthly contribution with my water bill and help out others.' Answer: 'I appreciate OWASA's communication. They communicate very clearly when bills are due (and exactly when they'll be paid if using autodraft). Recently they were testing systems in my neighborhood with smoke and gave lots of notice, including diagrams about what they were doing.' In 2021, having accomplished much of what was included in its most recent strategic plan, the Orange Water and Sewer Authority (OWASA) began a comprehensive process to update its plan for the next five to six years. OWASA has a 35 square-mile service area in Carrboro and Chapel Hill in North Carolina and provides water and sewer service for 22,000 accounts. Guiding principles for the strategic plan update included actively seeking to engage the Board, staff, the community, and other stakeholders, including proactive outreach to gather feedback to include and consider diverse perspectives. This engagement included an intensive environmental and organizational scan, with activities such as stakeholder work sessions, departmental strategic priority setting, peer reviews, industry publication reviews, and four separate surveys, which collectively garnered thousands of responses. While the overarching process of updating the strategic plan is still underway, considerable data analysis of the community survey has been completed and will be the subject of this presentation. Stakeholder input is invaluable in gauging the community's perception of the utility, as well as the community's priorities and preferences. To gather community feedback, and to be sensitive to COVID restrictions, OWASA created a tailored, 16-question online survey, available in both English and Spanish. The survey was hosted on the Zoho platform and was extensively promoted using a series of outreach strategies, including a direct email to all OWASA customers (for whom OWASA had email addresses), bus advertisements, tabling at the library, neighborhood kiosk flyers, and repeated social media posts on Twitter, Facebook, and Nextdoor. Respondents were asked what words come to mind when they think of OWASA ('water,' 'sewer,' 'clean,' 'reliable,' and 'expensive' were top choices) and to rate their satisfaction with OWASA's performance in a number of different areas. The highest levels of satisfaction were in drinking water quality, service reliability, and communications, while satisfaction levels were lower in cost of service. A significant percentage of respondents (more than 35% in each category) indicated that they didn't know how satisfied they were with regard to OWASA's environmental protection efforts, commitment to sustainability, and water/wastewater infrastructure construction, which suggests that there are areas where additional communication may be helpful. One of the other survey questions that will be invaluable for the organization as it works to clarify its priorities for the next five to six years was around responsibilities. OWASA asked, in addition to remaining committed to providing safe drinking water, protecting the environment through wastewater treatment, and meeting state and federal regulatory requirements, what responsibilities customers believed were most important for the utility to focus on. The most common responses included adapting to the effects of climate change, enhancing efforts to protect regional water quality, and preparing for emergencies and cyber threats. Most notably, when asked if respondents would be willing to pay more to address those responsibilities, more than two thirds of respondents indicated that they definitely or probably would be willing to pay more. This information, along with other community, stakeholder, and employee input will provide essential context for OWASA's Board and staff as they continue to work to update the strategic plan. As of the writing of this abstract, OWASA is still in the first phase of our strategic planning effort: the organizational and environmental scan. In addition to sharing the findings of the survey, our presentation will include what staff and Board did with that information in the development of the strategic plan.