A guide to developing a fair and equitable rate structure in a small drinking water or wastewater system. Walks users step-by-step through various worksheets in a process to calculate rates. Detailed instructions (including calculations) are provided for each worksheet, which can be completed by hand with worksheets provided in the guide or on electronic versions (Excel spreadsheets) of the worksheets that are available to download below. Also provides guidance on financial management of a system related to rates as a system's income stream.
New guide on setting rates for small water utilities [1] from RCAP [2] on Vimeo [3].
DOWNLOAD FILES
Entire guide [4] (PDF; 1.78 MB)
Electronic versions of the worksheets [5] in the guide, in the form of Excel files (228 KB)
Notes about the Excel files:
- The file you can download at the link above is a single Excel file. Contained in it (the workbook) are several individual worksheets that correspond to each worksheet in the printed booklet. You can access each worksheet by clicking on the worksheet tabs at the bottom of the screen.
- The instructions for using each worksheet in the printed booklet correspond to the same worksheet in the Excel file, except that the Excel file will perform all the calculations for you automatically. The Excel file already has all of the formulas for calculations in it, and those cells are protected so that you do not accidentally change the formulas. However, as an additional precaution, you may want to save a copy of the guide and then make an additional copy that you work with so you always have the original file as a backup. Some worksheets are also linked automatically, so where the instructions in the booklet say to transfer a column of numbers from one worksheet to the next, that step is performed automatically in the Excel file.
- You may notice before you enter numbers in some worksheets that there are unusual terms in some cells, such as "#DIV/0!" or "FALSE." These are harmless error messages, a quirk of Excel. They will disappear once you start entering figures into certain cells in that worksheet. These error messages mean that the sheet or cell does not have anything to perform calculations on yet.