Sustainable Wet Weather Funding Ca n be Achieved by Designing and Managing Multi-objective Stormwater Utility Programs

Implementing a stormwater user fee program (referred to herein as “stormwater utility”) as a dedicated means of stormwater funding is challenging in itself. Successfully sustaining the user fee program and building financial resiliency gets even more daunting in an environment of increasing capital funding needs, regulatory pressures, and affordability pressures. Even after establishing a parcel area based user fee, the Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) had to continue to enhance programs to address the various objectives of affordability; fee reductions for non-residential private stormwater management; incentivizing greening of private acres to support the Long Term Control Plan (LTCP) and to build adequate organizational capacity to manage the multiple issues.This paper discusses the integrated approach that PWD has adopted specifically in the operations of “stormwater user fee billing and management ” to continuously garner continued support to fulfill the multiple objectives. The integrated approach that PWD is currently using can be tailored to the specific needs of other stormwater user fee billing and management programs.