Cross-connection control programs require investment from across a utility: time, money, and resources. From postal notifications and administrative staff hours to training and sending surveyors into the field to proactively locate unprotected backflow hazards, your utility has to find a way to pay for it all.
5 Funding Approaches
You need to maintain an active cross-connection control program to protect your water supply and comply with state regulations. However, these requirements don’t come with additional budget. So, how can you cover your utility’s cross-connection control program—fairly and sustainably? Your approach should account for your community’s unique makeup, needs, and limitations.
These are the most common funding approaches that ensure you have enough budget to adequately cover program operations without overburdening your water customers:
- Water Rate Inclusion
A simple method: Build the cost of your cross-connection control program into your water rates. As with anything else covered by water rates, customers will pay more based on their water usage and the dollars you bring in vary month-to-month—albeit predictably. - Program Line Item Fee
Rather than build the cost of your program into water rates, you can include an additional line item on customer bills dedicated specifically to cross-connection control. This method ensures consistent revenue tied to your cross-connection control budget and evenly distributes the cost burden among your customers. - Ready-to-Serve Fees
Ready-to-serve (RTS) fees are regular fees added to water customer bills for infrastructure maintenance. These fees can be included on a monthly or quarterly basis and often include infrastructure costs beyond cross-connection control. - Inspection Fees
To connect funding sources directly to program activities, your utility might consider charging cross-connection control inspection fees. This means only water customers who receive an inspection in any given year will contribute directly to funding cross-connection control. - Annual Backflow Preventer Permitting Fees
Permitting fees provide another method of connecting program activities to customer costs. When new construction, retrofitting, renovations, or expansions occur in your community, you can build in a fee that contributes to cross-connection control program costs.
While these funding approaches can cover most cross-connection control program costs, additional funding methods to supplement your budget might include:
- Grant awards
- Non-compliance penalties
- Capital improvement program allocation
- Interdepartmental cost sharing
Deciding How to Fund Your Cross-Connection Control Program
What works for your utility may not be the same as what works for other utilities—even your neighbors. Depending on your customer makeup and community needs, you may want to combine multiple funding approaches to better distribute costs and ensure a high-functioning program. Consider things like:
- Customer education on cross-connection control
- Note: Your program should address education in some capacity and a portion of your budget should be earmarked for public awareness.
- Customer engagement and participation levels
- The ratio of residential to non-residential customers
- The rate of community growth, new construction, and/or retrofitting
These are just a few factors to consider that can help you determine the best way to fund your cross-connection control efforts.
Ready to learn more about how HydroCorp can support your utility’s cross-connection control program?
