For utility districts, municipal water and sewer departments and authorities
The Utility Desk
Whether you get referred, and whether you qualify for funding, both come down to what is in the state's file on your system. We keep that file current and build the documents that go in it.
On a small system the operating reports, the audit, the annual information report, the water loss audit, the CCR, the emergency plan and the map all land on two or three people who already have full days. The filings get done in whatever time is left over.
When one slips, you usually hear about it from the Board or from a funding application stuck on the scorecard, and by then someone is explaining it in a public meeting.
We do that paperwork on the deadline and hand you the finished document, ready for the board packet, at a price a six hundred connection system can pay.
Where we are useful, in the order it usually comes up
- You want to know where you stand before you spend anything. The Readiness Review reads your file the way the Comptroller and the state read it. What is required, what is missing or out of date, how you score against the Board's referral triggers, and which funding you qualify for right now. Ten business days, no site visit, and the fee comes off anything you hire us for afterward.
- The Board or the state has asked you for something specific. A water loss correction plan, a financial policy package, a catch-up on delinquent filings. We build it from your own audits, billing export and operator logs, review every figure with the person who knows the system, and hand you a document your board can adopt.
- Your water loss number is in the wrong place. An AWWA M36 audit, validated, with a correction program that puts the metering, leak detection and pressure work in the order it pays back. Written to the Board's forty percent line in Tennessee and the Commission's fifteen percent line in Kentucky.
- You are chasing money and the paperwork is in the way. SRF, USDA Rural Development, state grants. Application, priority ranking support, the environmental and financial exhibits, and the reporting afterward. Where the program allows administration as a cost of the award, that part is billed to the grant.
- You would rather it never got to this point again. The compliance retainer is the calendar with owners and dates on it, the monthly reports assembled, the annual filings made on time, and a quarterly look at whether the rates are still covering what they need to cover. Next year's filings become an update instead of a project.
Published prices
What it costs.
Priced by metered connections. The retainer figures below are exact. Project fees are shown as ranges, and we will give you the exact figure for your system on the first call.
| Metered connections | Compliance retainer |
|---|---|
| Under 1,000 | $700per month |
| 1,000 to 2,499 | $1,000per month |
| 2,500 to 4,999 | $1,250per month |
| 5,000 to 10,000Over 10,000, we price the engagement on its own. | $1,500per month |
What the retainer covers: the compliance calendar with owners and dates, monthly operating report assembly, the annual water loss audit, the consumer confidence report, the emergency plan and distribution map on their cycles, the annual information report, Board and Comptroller filings, a quarterly check of the finances against your rate model, and an annual refresh of the asset plan. Projects are priced separately and listed below, so you always know which side of the line a piece of work falls on.
| Project work | Fee |
|---|---|
| Compliance and Funding Readiness Review Best place to start A written report your board can read in one sitting. What the Comptroller and the state currently require from this system and when each item is due, which items are missing or out of date and what each one takes to fix, how the system scores against every referral trigger, and which funding programs it qualifies for now. Ends with a one page action list ranked by deadline with a cost beside each item, whether we do it or you do. Ten business days, no site visit, and the fee is credited in full against anything you engage us for within ninety days. | $750 – $1,50010 business days |
| Water loss audit and correction plan An AWWA M36 water balance with validation, then a correction program that names the metering, leak detection and pressure management steps in the order they pay for themselves. Board-ready, and written to answer the question the Board will ask next. | $3,500 – $8,000by connection band |
| Lead service line inventory and replacement plan Built from your tap cards, meter records and plats, plus whatever field verification your crew or contractor has done. Compliant with the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, including the public notification materials. The baseline inventory is due the first of November 2027. | $5,000 – $15,000by connection band |
| Financial policy package Cash reserve, debt management, capitalization and OPEB trust policies drafted to what the Board expects to see, in language your attorney can review and your board can adopt without a workshop. | $2,500 – $5,000by connection band |
| Rate study and asset management plan, together The pair a Board order usually names. They share one asset register and one financial model, so together they cost $2,500 to $6,000 less than the two bought separately. | $11,500 – $29,000by connection band |
| Cost-of-service rate study A five-year revenue requirement, cost allocation across customer classes, rate design, customer impact tables the council can look at before it votes, an inside versus outside city justification that holds up when somebody challenges it, debt service coverage and a reserve policy. Built to AWWA M1 and, where the state requires it, to the elements its statute names. Reviewed and certified by a licensed CPA, and presented in person at the meeting where rates are adopted. | $6,000 – $15,000by connection band |
| Asset management plan An asset register covering pipe, valves, hydrants, tanks, pumps, meters and treatment, each with age, material, condition and consequence of failure, built from your records and walked with your operator, who knows which mains break every winter. Level of service, capital improvement plan and funding strategy on top. Written to satisfy the TDEC infrastructure scorecard, and the fiscal sustainability plan where a treatment project needs one. | $8,000 – $20,000by connection band |
| Grant and SRF applications The application, priority ranking support, the environmental and financial exhibits, and the post-award administration and reporting that follows. Where the program allows administration as a cost of the award, that part is billed to the grant rather than to your operating fund, and we will tell you up front which side it falls on. | $3,000 – $10,000per application |
| Merger and consolidation feasibility study The financial, rate and operational analysis of combining two systems, with governance options and a transition plan. Usually ordered rather than chosen, and the Board's Utility Revitalization Fund exists to pay for it. We can only work for one side, so ask early. | $8,000 – $20,000by connection band |
On the studies. Every rate study is reviewed and certified by a licensed CPA before it reaches your board, and the certification page carries that. The same review covers the financial strategy inside an asset management plan and the numbers in a merger study. Engineering judgment, where a condition assessment or a capital plan needs it, goes to a licensed engineer who signs for that part.
Terms, in plain words
How the money works.
- 01 The Readiness Review comes off anything you hire us for. In full, on any engagement signed within ninety days of the report. That makes it a risk free way to find out what we are like to work with, which is the entire reason it exists. It is a document review, not an audit and not an engineering evaluation, and it does not certify compliance with anything. It tells you what the file says.
- 02 Half at engagement, half at presentation. Small work on delivery. We plan around board approval and a sixty day payables cycle. The deposit is what lets us start before the first check clears.
- 03 Water and sewer together move you up one band. A second enterprise fund brings a second set of filings and a second rate structure, and we would rather price that up front than find it halfway through. Under 500 connections the retainer stays at $700 either way.
- 04 A real deadline carries a rush charge of twenty-five to forty percent. If the Board meets in five weeks and the study has to be in the packet, tell us on the first call. We would rather price a tight deadline than turn it down.
- 05 We present in person at the meeting where it is adopted. Inside about ninety minutes of Union City that is in the fee. Further out we bill the travel at cost and tell you what it will be before you sign. A study that nobody explains to the board is a study that sits in a drawer.
- 06 Never a fee contingent on an outcome. Not a share of an award, not a fee that depends on where the rates land. Federal rules prohibit it on the grant side and Arkansas requires the opposite assurance in writing on every rate study. More to the point, you cannot buy an independent analysis from somebody with a stake in the answer, and independence is most of what you are paying for.
One honest caveat
A good deal of this help is available free, and sometimes free is the right answer.
You already know where the free help is: your rural water association, the RCAP affiliate, MTAS or CTAS, the Comptroller's utility specialists. Use all of it. We are not competing with any of them, and we will point you to them when they are the better fit.
The difference is what you are left holding when the conversation ends. The free programs advise and review. What they will not do is hand you the finished document, submitted, in the packet, with someone standing up at the meeting to answer questions about it. If the clerk has the hours, free help plus the clerk's time is the cheaper path and we will tell you so. If not, and the date is coming anyway, call us.