Live on 6/16 Mission Monday: Water Rate Setting in Northwestern, Central, and Southern IL (Webinar) IEPA# 21106

Welcome to Mission Monday! Mission Monday is the Illinois Section’s new webinar series designed with our mission in mind:  providing resources for the advocacy of safe and sustainable water through enriching membership, mentoring, and increasing public awareness. The education that you receive from this series is focused on the topics that you need to continue to supply safe and sustainable water to all of Illinois.  Once a month we’re bringing education to you on the topics you need the most. This series is free for our members and $25 for non-members. Not a member? Join today at AWWA –  www.awwa.org/join.

SUMMARY: This webinar provides a comprehensive review of rate setting in Northwestern, Central, and Southern Illinois (NCSI), based on research conducted by the Government Finance Research Center at the University of Illinois Chicago. The research findings that will be discussed involved reviews of municipal documents, interviews with community water system representatives, and water rates collected directly from 595 or 70% of NCSI municipalities where residents receive drinking water from municipal systems or water commissions/districts. This data collection initiative is the single largest in Illinois and only the third effort among U.S. researchers to collect water rate data outside of urban areas. The discussion will cover research findings across several key themes: the rate-setting process, challenges in rate-setting among disadvantaged communities, reasons for rate increases, the role of policy in rate-setting, water bill components, intergovernmental coordination as a means of increasing equitable rate-setting, and the definitions of affordability.

PRESENTER: Deborah A. Carroll, Ph.D. - UIC

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