Stormwater management has changed forever, and stormwater authorities may just be the answer. Warminster Municipal Authority (WMA) became co-permitees with Warminster Township for the MS4 system in April 2021. Representatives from WMA and their stormwater engineer, Vanessa Nedrick, Remington & Vernick Engineers, will give an update on the last two years of startup, ownership, operation and maintenance, regulatory compliance, and public outreach.
Learning Objectives:
Why authority ownership? This is what we do! An authority provides long-term dedicated funding and maintenance to a collection system. We focus on water treatment, water testing, water conveyance, regulatory compliance, pipe maintenance and replacement.
Staff buy-in is needed! This impacts employees in operations and maintenance, billing, customer service, administration and most importantly, buy-in is needed from your board of directors.
Articles of Incorporation. Amend your articles of incorporations to include language allowing stormwater operations.
Partnerships are the next step in a system takeover. Forming a partnership with township officials, local government leaders, large impervious surface property owners, environmental groups, all residents and business owners. Transparency in the process of forming your stormwater fee is crucial. Keeping these local partnerships informed of the process is how you can gain positivity to a new charge.
How do you currently bill? You need to be prepared to bill customers and tax map parcel owners, some of whom you may not have record of in your current system. The most widely adopted billing method for stormwater is by impervious surface coverage. This means you will need to bill tax parcel owners, rather than water/sewer customers.
Budget. You will need to perform a short-term and long-term budgetary plan to be able to identify your fundings needs, which will be the driving factor in the fees you implement.
Creating Rules and Regulations which outlines your entire stormwater program. Make sure to include an appeals process for someone to dispute their charge. A credit policy is highly recommended to give credit to parcels who are managing their stormwater runoff and meeting or exceeding current regulations.
Prepare a resolution for your board to adopt. A resolution is needed to adopt the fees, rules and regs, and credit policy.
Inform the customers of when the charge will start. We chose to operate the system for one year before we implemented fees.
Be prepared to answer calls. Once you start charging, the phone will be ringing. This is where educating the staff and getting buy-in is crucial. Customer service will be the front line when these calls come in.
Join Daulton George and William Motzer from Warminster Municipal Authority and Vanessa Nedrick from Remington & Vernick Engineers to learn everything you need to know about creating a stormwater authority.
Cost: $45
Presenters:
Daulton George, Warminster Municipal Authority
Bill Motzer, Warminster Municipal Authority
Vanessa Nedrick, Remington and Vernick Engineers
