Posts tagged COVID-19
How the Pandemic is Affecting the Finances of Georgia Water Utilities
How the Pandemic is Affecting the Finances of Georgia Water Utilities

The pandemic may not be affecting all water utilities evenly across Georgia. While both the unemployment rate and the virus spread remain high, a few utilities have actually seen increases in rate revenues and connection fees over the last few months. Several metro utilities say they have not seen a significant drop in non-payment yet. At the national level, Standard and Poor’s (S&P), a utility credit-rating agency, reports it only downgraded 39 of the roughly 17,000 communities that the company has utility rating relations with between March and mid-December, 2020. So, with this much job loss, which utilities are suffering?

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Stacey Isaac Berahzerwater finance, COVID-19, water utility, wastewaterComment
4 Ways to Drive Operational Efficiencies: Vehicles & Water Service During the Pandemic
4 Ways to Drive Operational Efficiencies: Vehicles & Water Service During the Pandemic

Operating efficiently is the first line of defense against steep rate increases and water affordability issues. However, a pandemic requires physical distancing, and this can be a challenge for water utilities sending crews out to fix water infrastructure. Under normal circumstances, “efficiency” may mean that a small crew reports to the work site in the same vehicle. With the pandemic, utilities have had to become creative in order to keep their workers safe by putting them in separate vehicles. Finding inexpensive ways to do that is crucial. This is especially true in cases where the utility has forgone its planned rate increase, or is facing revenue shortfalls due to declines in sales from commercial and industrial customers. This post shares some innovative ways that several utilities have reported keeping their costs down with respect to vehicles.

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Stacey Isaac Berahzerwater finance, water utility, COVID-19, water affordability, efficiencyComment
Keeping the Water on in Albany, Georgia During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Keeping the Water on in Albany, Georgia During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Albany, Georgia is one of the hottest spots, nationally for COVID-19. Albany’s Dougherty County has less than 100,000 people, yet the per capita rate of coronavirus infection was second only to New York at the beginning of April, 2020. This rural county in Southwest Georgia has already had over 100 deaths, more deaths that any county in the Atlanta metro area. Dougherty is the only non-metro county with over one thousand positive tests for the disease at the writing of this post. How that came to be is probably a combination of two untimely funerals and a court case. But how does a municipality so small and so heavily impacted by this virus keep the water on?

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Stacey Isaac BerahzerCOVID-19, water affordability, pandemic Comment