The City of Hendersonville wanted to pursue a Stormwater Enterprise Fund Rate Study project, where the primary objective of the project was to re-evaluate its existing stormwater rate structure and establish a revised structure that addressed the City’s short- and long-term operations, maintenance and capital needs. Like many cities across the U.S., Hendersonville was faced with the challenge of paying for increased costs to comply with state and federal stormwater quality mandates as well as ongoing maintenance of and improvement to its existing drainage system. While the existing stormwater rate structure has been generating some revenue, it has not been adequate to meet the City’s drainage and regulated stormwater program requirements, nor does it reflect the demands that stormwater runoff places on repairing/replacing public infrastructure. The City had also sought to update its stormwater fee schedule to more adequately address its comprehensive needs.
WithersRavenel helped with the draft budget development by helping define current levels of stormwater-related services provided by the City in in terms of operating staff, equipment allocations, maintenance costs, capital outlay, and other operational and maintenance expenditures. We also helped identify operational and maintenance issues and needs that were not being addressed in the existing stormwater program. Additionally, our team helped determine the appropriate level of stormwater services that was consistent with identified City Council objectives, which reflected the community’s input and considers policy parameters.
For the financial analysis, WithersRavenel established key financial objectives and assumptions, which helped guide the development of the Financial Analysis Model. The team also established annual estimates of new revenue requirements necessary to sustain the stormwater enterprise over the 10-year period, and calculated the impacts on various types of customers at various equivalent fee levels. The stormwater rate model that was created is helping the City project fund revenues based on proposed user rate assumptions and which could be calibrated to the projected revenue requirement established in the financial analysis.
The final deliverables included a draft memorandum of findings and conclusions, including the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP), financial model, rate model, and a revised (draft) stormwater ordinance.