the lancaster county municipal stormwater financing feasibility study sharing lessons learned monica...
TRANSCRIPT
The Lancaster County Municipal Stormwater Financing Feasibility
Study
Sharing lessons learnedMonica Billig
Environmental Finance CenterUniversity of Maryland
CAC/LGAC Meeting December 5th, 2013
The EFC: Who are we?
Address the issue of “how to pay” by working across sectors
Help local and state organizations meet environmental mandates in fiscally-sound manner
Project BackgroundDrivers:
MS4 permit compliance/enforcement
Need to develop baseline stormwater program cost estimates
Improve efficiency through collaboration
Sponsored by the Lancaster County Clean Water Consortium
Funded by the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation’s Local Government Capacity Building Initiative
Technical Analysis Methodology
1. Assess each individual stormwater program
2. Identify gaps in each existing program and evaluate future needs
3. Determine where current program fits into the desired level of service and evaluate costs
4. Develop and finalize proposed stormwater program budget
5. Develop a financing strategy to support budget
Identify opportunities to collaborate
COMMUNITY OUTREACH
Greatest opportunity for collaboration is through education and outreach
Lessons learned early on
Outreach is first step to putting long-term financing in place, projects on the ground
Need to know the audience to frame message
Initial Findings
Long term planning for implementing
stormwater projects
Access to available information & resources
Relaying the importance of stormwater management to community
Tracking, documentation,
and record keeping
Municipal staff training
Limited understanding of program requirements
Most important element of study
Initial assumption: Developing
cost estimates
Finding: Peer-to-peer
exchange and information
sharing
Biggest challenge
Initial assumption:
Unknown
Finding: Existing
data/baselines are
unknown
What makes a stormwater program successful?
First hand observation reveals… Leadership Extensive targeted outreach Collaboration Sound fiscal planning
…All have in common:
1. Creativity
2. Hard work
No two programs look the same…
Thank you!
For further information:
Monica BilligEnvironmental Finance Center
University of Maryland
http://efc.umd.edu/