This interactive rates and financial benchmarking dashboard is designed to assist utility managers and local officials with analyzing residential water and wastewater rates against multiple characteristics, including utility finances, system characteristics, customer base socioeconomic conditions, and geography. Funding assistance was provided by the Water Research Foundation and the U.S. EPA as part of the Smart Management for Small Water Systems project.

Special thanks to the Texas Municipal League for providing the results of their water and wastewater surveys, as well as to the Texas Water Development Board for sharing financial information on utilities with long term debt.

2013 residential rates for more than 560 utilities across Texas can be compared with:

• All other utilities in the dashboard,
• Utilities with similar population,
• Utilities with similar revenue generation,
• Utilities with similar household income,
• Utilities with residential water use,
• Utilities within 50 miles distance.

 The following measures for the selected utility are compared to key indicators or to the utilities within the selected comparison group:

• Monthly water/wastewater bills,
• Monthly bill as a percentage of Median Household Income for the service community,
• Conservation pricing signal,
• Debt service coverage ratio.
• Average household water use.

Compare residential rates for 5,000 or 10,000 gallons/month, or commercial rates for 50,000 or 200,000 gallons/months.

Raise rates by up to 50% and observe the (hypothetical) effects on the utility's rates, revenues and rate affordability.

Track historical water and wastewater rates and average household water use between 2003 and 2013; data are self reported by the utilities for annual Texas Municipal League surveys.

Troubleshooting

The dashboard is is an Adobe Flash (swf) file that should automatically run on your web browser once it is launched. The dashboard might take 20 to 40 seconds to load on your browser. If you are having trouble accessing the dashboards, try the following steps:

1. Download the latest version of Adobe Flash Player (9.0 or later) on the browser you are using to access the dashboards (Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.)
2. If an error message appears warning about running scripts, accept the scripts to launch the dashboards.
3. If you are still having trouble accessing the dashboard, try switching to another web browser (we recommend using Chrome or Internet Explorer). You may need to download the latest version of Adobe Flash Player again before you proceed.
4. If you are still unable to launch the dashboard, please email David Tucker.