2019 AL Residential Inside Water and Sewer Dashboard

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Currently selected comparison group:

This dial shows the monthly bill for a residential customer for of service, relative to what is charged by other utilities in the selected comparison group.

What do the colors mean?
The dark green band spanning the middle of the dial shows the spread of bills for the middle 50% of utilities in the comparison group for of a month. Utilities that fall within this color band are charging similar to the middle majority of comparable utilities. The full green band (including the two light green bands on either side of the dark green band) reflect what the middle 80% of comparable utilities charge for a month.

The yellow bands on the far left and right of the dial reflect the bills that a minority of comparable utilities are charging. The yellow band on the far left of the dial reflects the lowest 10% of bills charged by the comparable utilities. Utilities charging much lower than their peers may be at higher risk of not generating sufficient revenue to cover their expenses, and should assess the long-term financial health of the utility. On the other end, the yellow band on the far right of the dial shows the highest 10% of bills charged by the comparable utilities. High rates may lead to greater difficulties of customers being able to afford to pay their bills.

However, the color bands of this dial are meant to serve as visual cues for where a utility falls within its peer group, and do not by themselves fully indicate the merit of a utility's rate setting practices. For a more in-depth analysis of rates and their financial implications, please use our free Water & Wastewater Rates Analysis Model tool.

The charge for the next 1,000 beyond 10,000 /month is one of several pricing signals the utility sends to its customers to encourage conservation. It mostly affects residential customers with high use, which in addition to consumption may include irrigation, leaking fixtures, recreation and other uses.

This is the average household water usage per month as reported to the surveying organization (please see the Links tab for more information). The average household water usage for the selected utility is compared to the utilities in the selected comparison group. The darkest green area indicates the lowest range of average household water usage, for the lowest 25 percent of utility rate structures in the selected comparison group. The darkest yellow area indicates the highest range of average household water usage, for the highest 25 percent of utility rate structures in the selected comparison group. The Median is located in the middle, between the second (light green) and third (light yellow) groups.

This dial shows the average monthly water use per residential customer in the county that the utility primarily serves ( County). The water usage data is derived from the United States Geological Services (USGS) National Water Use Information Program as of 2015. This may not represent the actual per capita residential water usage of the selected utility. Please contact the utility directly for the most accurate information.

= Operating Revenues

Operating Expenses including depreciation & amortization

Audited data for FY

Operating Revenues
Operating Expenses including depreciation
Depreciation & amortization expense

Cost Recovery is a measure of whether the utility’s rates were sufficient to cover the cost of operations and capital (in the form of depreciation) for the fiscal year. It is calculated by dividing operating revenues by operating expenses including depreciation expense.

In the case of some utilities that do not report depreciation in operating expenses, depreciation is excluded from the operating expenses, and thus the ratio only measures whether the utility's rates were sufficient to cover the cost of O&M. A ratio of less than 1.0 could be a sign of financial concern. In general, this ratio should be higher than 1.0 in order to accommodate future capital investments.

Click on the tab labeled "Financial Benchmarks" to observe several indicators for a more holistic view of your utility's financial condition.
For a more in-depth look at your utility's financial sustainability, use our free

Financial Health Checkup for Water Utilities Tool

The financial data displayed are for Fiscal Year , adjusting for the rate increase you selected below and the estimates of consequential reduction of water use.

Data Not Available.

Among 462 utilities in FY 2014, 49% had a ratio of >= 1, and 16% had a ratio of >= 1.2.

This dial displays the charge for the next 1,000 beyond the selected consumption point of .

A higher marginal price is one way a utility can send a pricing signal to its customers to encourage conservation and efficiency. Depending on how a utility structures its rates, a higher marginal price per 1,000 may target residential customers with high use, which, in addition to household consumptive use, may include irrigation, leaking fixtures, and other uses.

Conversely, a lower marginal price may promote consumption, or other rate-setting objectives.

What are one-time fees? This dial shows what a residential customer is charged on a one-time basis, relative to other utilities in the selected comparison group, at the time that they are connected to the water and/or sewer systems. Connection fees (a.k.a. tap fees, etc.) are designed to recover all or a portion of the materials and labor cost of connecting a customer to the nearest water or sewer line. In the case of water connections, costs may include the tap, pipe material and installation, water meter, meter box, and other associated material and labor costs.

Capital Recovery fees (a.k.a. impact fees, etc.) are intended to recover some or all of the capital costs associated with developing and maintaining system capacity. Water system capacity charges can include costs for source water supply and collection, treatment facilities, storage, pumps, and distribution. Wastewater system capacity features include collection systems and mains, as well as treatment and discharge facilities. Different utilities have different fee-setting philosophies, and may choose, within the bounds of the law and regulation in the state in question, to set up one or both of these fees, as well as how much of capacity cost is included in recurring rates versus one-time charges.

What do the colors mean? The dark green band spanning the middle of the dial shows the spread of one-time fees for the middle 50% of utilities in the comparison group. Utilities that charge within this color band are charging similar to the middle majority of comparable utilities. The full green band (including the two light green bands on either side of the dark green band) reflect what the middle 80% of comparable utilities are charging.

The yellow bands at the bottom and the top of the dial reflect the one-time fees that a minority of comparable utilities are charging. The yellow band at the bottom of the dial shows the lowest 10% of one-time fees charged by the comparable utilities. On the other end, the yellow band at the top of the dial shows the highest 10% of one-time fees charged by the comparable utilities.

= Annual Bill (Monthly Bill times 12 Months Per Year)

Annual Median Household Income

Raw Data

Annual Bills
Annual MHI

This dial shows what a household making the median level of income in would spend annually, as a percent of their income, on using per month. Half of the households in the community would be spending a greater portion of their income for these bills.

The median affordability metric is often referred to as "percent Median Household Income (MHI)". It is only one of many metrics that can be used to assess affordability. There is no universally accepted definition of what "affordable rates" means and other factors such as poverty rate, income distribution, and fixed income will influence the affordability of rates in a community. The color spectrum reflects that this metric is on a continuum, without any single threshold that dictates what is affordable or unaffordable. The MHI data are derived from the U.S. Census Bureau's 5-year American Community Survey estimates for x MHI (in dollars).

For a more comprehensive look at affordability in your community using multiple metrics, use our

Residential Rates Affordability Assessment Tool

For more information about percent MHI, including considerations about its assumptions,

read this blog post about Percent MHI Indicator

For an in-depth look at customer affordability programs, read our report:

Navigating Legal Pathways to Rate-Funded Customer Assistance Programs:
A Guide for Water and Wastewater Utilities

Data Not Available: Though data for this dial is not available for this utility, the dial can be turned on by the user manually inputting the relevant data.

Click on the “Edit Data or Add Utility” button in the upper right corner and either clone and edit your utility, or create a new utility entry from scratch. This feature allows users to edit or enter data relating to utility finances, rates, and demographics, which will then be reflected on the dashboard. For example, adding the Annual Median Household Income for a utility’s community will turn on the Affordability dial, while the Cost Recovery Dial is controlled by a utility’s Annual Operating Revenues and Expenses including Depreciation.
Please note that the edited data are temporarily saved in the user’s browser cookies, not permanently written to the database. The edited data can only be viewed on that particular device. To share results from the Edit Data or Add Utility feature, you must print or take a screenshot of the dashboard while the dial is active.

The user should consider each utility’s revenue generation within the context of the utility’s service population, regulatory mandate, and level of service. Level of service is a comprehensive term used to describe the extent to which a utility maintains infrastructure on public (and in some cases, private) property. Consequently, revenue generation by itself is not an indicator of the fiscal health of a stormwater utility.

= Monthly Base Charge ($)

Total Monthly Bill at Selected Usage Amount ($)

The Revenue Stability Dial measures the percentage of the selected monthly bill that comes from the base charge. The base charge (sometimes called the minimum charge) is the fixed charge that is assessed regardless of the amount of water usage or wastewater disposal. The higher the base charge, the greater the revenue stability for the utility because base charges do not typically fluctuate with usage. Higher base charges, however, diminish the relative strength of the pricing signal of the volumetric rates that the utility sets to encourage conservation, because customers will not save as much money when they conserve as they would under lower base charges.

This dial shows the proportion of the total monthly bill that comes from the base charge. For example, when selecting 6,000 /month of usage, with a $100.00 total monthly bill, if the base charge is $20.00, the percentage would be 20%. The four colors on the dial reflect lower to higher proportions arranged in four quarters (0 to 25%, 26 to 50%, etc.). A lower percentage indicates that the utility’s revenues are less stable than if the base charge comprised a higher percentage of the total bill. However, a lower percentage also indicates that the utility could potentially more strongly incentivize water use conservation by its customers through the pricing signal at the currently selected usage amount.

Operating Revenues
Operating Expenses
Depreciation & Amortization Expense
Principal Paid on Long-Term Debt
Interest Expense

Utility Owner
Ownership type
Primary County
Primary service area
Date Rates Effective

		Statewide Stats
Number of Systems	1	520

Est. Number of Connections
Est. Service Population
Operating Revenue
Operating Expense
Current Assets

Census Year		2018
Average Household Size		2.55
Median Household Income		$48,486
Poverty Rate		17.49%

Demographic Information ?
Service Area
2018 Percent Poverty
2018 Percent Below 2x Federal Poverty Income
2018 Median Household Income
2018 20th Percentile Income
2018 Unemployment

Water System Characteristics Obtained from SDWIS and the CA Water Board
PWSID
Community Water System Name
Primary Water Source Type
Number of Monitoring Violations 2017-2020		?
Number of Water Quality Violations 2017-2020		?
Service Population		?
Number of Connections		?
Percent of Connections that are Metered		?
Compliance Status with the Human Right to Water watchlist in 2020		?

Resources for Alabama

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