Funding Resources and Opportunities

Background

One of the great challenges facing water infrastructure managers is finding ways to fund needed system improvements while maintaining water and sewer costs that are reasonably affordable for most customers. This gets further complicated when federal and state regulators, often driven by political pressures, demand system changes, and upgrades above and beyond what the utility deems necessary to maintain a high level of service and environmental protection. 

Need for Change

MCWRS has been at the forefront in requesting legislators at the federal and state level increase available funding for water utilities, especially to support regulatory demands. MCWRS also advocates for more restraint and reasonableness from regulatory agencies so that new, costly, and burdensome requirements do not further impact ratepayer affordability.  Even when federal funding is made available, as with the post-COVID ARPA and BIL infrastructure acts, the red tape and difficulty in understanding the process to access the monies is problematic, especially for smaller systems.  Advocating for more funding with less funding bureaucracy continues to be a major focus of MCWRS.

MCWRS Advocacy and Resources