No Waiting on the Rain: Options for Fully Funding a Sustainable Stormwater Utility

As the regulatory requirements for stormwater management continue to put financial pressure on municipal governments, more and more communities are either required to implement a stormwater program or improve their existing program to meet NPDES MS4 stormwater permit requirements and capital needs for asset renewal and upgrades. The message is that stormwater management programs must adapt to challenges and changing conditions. This paper reviews the spectrum of challenges facing municipal governments today and strategies for maintaining a cost effective, sustainable and adaptive stormwater program, with focus on a program scorecard tool for evaluating and improving your program.Successful programs require ongoing review and refinement to improve management and revenue collections and ensure that lessons from early adopters are taken to heart. The evaluation framework tool reviewed in this paper provides a rational structure and process for continuous improvement and program adaptation to changing conditions and demands. It is based on a program score card for the continuous improvement of any stormwater program, which is divided into three components; functional program, revenue program and management program.