Brownsville Public Utilities Board

Brownsville, Texas, United States

Located “on the border, by the sea,” the Brownsville Public Utilities Board (BPUB) provides water, sewer, and electric service to more than 180,000 people in southern Texas. While a model utility in many areas, BPUB struggles to balance infrastructure investment and maintaining consistently high service levels with affordability concerns, given that the service area’s median household income is 40% lower than that of Texas. Despite these challenges, BPUB has long focused on maximizing its available resources, and has successfully developed and executed strategic plans to advance the organization for more than a decade. Raftelis was retained by BPUB to assist the organization with the development of an updated five-year strategic plan.

This engagement is a multi-year engagement designed to engage both the employees of the organization and a large number of the BPUB’s key stakeholders and customers. Working with a core strategic planning team, comprised of over 20 of the utility’s leadership team and six cross-functional goal teams, Raftelis is leading the development of BPUB’s roadmap to success for the next five years.

Major activities include, leadership interviews, online stakeholder surveys, employee focus groups, and Board workshops. This comprehensive approach ensures a high level of internal and external buy-in of the organization’s new Vision, Mission, and Values, as well as its Goals, Strategies, and Outcomes (measures). Additional support is being provided to ensure that the utility’s annual budgeting cycle aligns with the updated strategic plan. Finally, Raftelis is also tasked with developing and delivering an online strategy management system that will allow the organization to continuously measure, monitor, and report organizational progress, and performance as it implements its new strategic plan.

View Strategic Plan