AWWA ACE54335

Juggling multiple budgets and providing a long-term financial strategy for your organization can be quite a challenge. Each year budgets become tighter, and with limited resources, it becomes quite a task to decide which projects to fund. A strong Capital Improvement Program (CIP) provides clear, defensible funding strategies, reduces operating costs, and promotes sound, stable management of both capital and O&M spending. Asset management is now receiving great attention in the water and wastewater industry, as evidenced by numerous recent conferences, workshops and studies. Utilities need to employ state of the art planning techniques to optimize their capital expenditures in light of a changing marketplace, an increasing demand on limited resources and an aging infrastructure. To stay--or become--competitive, utilities must allocate limited available capital to those projects that will yield greatest benefit. Utility managers must also be able to demonstrate to the public how their planned capital expenditures will most effectively accomplish established, yet often competing, utility goals and objectives.Although prioritizing capital improvement project spending has always involved difficult decisions, few utilities have engaged formal decision processes to select capital projects. CIP planning has typically involved managerial debate, often without reference to organizational goals, that may be compromised by competing interests, uncertainties, and decision-makingcomplexities. Rapid changes in the water utility industry, including growing competition, increased public and regulatory scrutiny, aging infrastructure, and greater resource limitations practically mandate the use of decision support tools to be effective. The value of good decision tools is best measured by how well stakeholders buy into the conclusions. Credibility begins with knowledge of the process and good access to information. This paper describes an analytical approach to prioritization to aid utility managers in ensuring selection of appropriate, cost-effective capital improvement projects. Includes table, figures.

Product Details

Edition:

Vol. - No.

Published:

06/01/2001

Number of Pages:

13

File Size:

1 file , 560 KB