City of Bloomington

Bloomington, Illinois, United States

The City of Bloomington (City) engaged Raftelis to develop sanitary sewer and stormwater financial plans and planning models. The financial plans included a forecast of water and stormwater revenue, the development of a capital financing plan to fund improvements to the wastewater and stormwater systems, and a detailed cash flow analysis for each utility indicating the rate adjustments necessary to ensure operational sustainability.

Over the next 10 years, the City is anticipating relatively large capital expenditures associated with mitigating overflows from its combined sewer and stormwater system as well as ongoing collection system maintenance. A key component of this engagement involved developing capital financing strategies to allow the utilities to meet their operational and regulatory objectives while minimizing the impact on rate payers. Raftelis developed an Excel-based sanitary sewer and stormwater financial planning model, which allowed Raftelis to work with the City to develop alternative financial planning scenarios and model the impact of varying levels of capital reinvestment on customer bills.

In addition to the financial planning efforts for the sanitary sewer and stormwater utilities, Raftelis was also engaged to develop charges for the City’s solid waste utility.