Stormwater Billing: Navigating the Integration Challenges

The criticality of the integration of people, business process, and technology in establishing any successful program, has been repeatedly emphasized to the point of becoming a cliché'. Yet, utilities continue to struggle with integration challenges when establishing new programs or streamlining existing programs, and nowhere does this integration challenge manifest strongly, as it does in the case of impervious area based stormwater user fee billing implementation. This paper will discuss the key policy, people, process, and systems issues that utility managers need to address using an integrated approach while implementing stormwater user fee billing and will provide strategies to navigate that complex maze of issues. The issues and the resolution strategies will be presented using the recently completed stormwater user fee billing implementation project, at the City of Wilmington, DE, as a case study.The key issues pertaining to stormwater billing implementation will be discussed under four categories: (i) Policies, (ii) Business Process, (iii) Systems (technology), and (iv) Staffing Resources. For each issue, the nature of the issue, the potential options, and the impact of the options on other issues will be discussed since the real challenge lies not in the issues per se but in their complex integration.