Storm Water Enterprise Utility Development and Implementation Services

The Vendor is required to provide storm water enterprise utility development and implementation services for include:
1. Rate structure finalization and data integration
• Propose a methodology to finalize an equitable fee structure, evaluating options such as tiered systems versus uniform flat fees for specific parcel classes.
• Develop a strategy to integrate and quality-control the city’s existing GIS impervious area data with the assessor’s database and the city's Tyler ERP utility billing system.
• Recommend policies for handling complex billing scenarios, including minimum billing thresholds, multi-tenant properties, condominium common areas, and municipal and tax-exempt parcels.
• Update preliminary financial models to reflect the most current capital improvement plan (CIP) requirements.
2. Public outreach, support and strategic communications
• Assist city communications staff with the development of a comprehensive public outreach strategy designed to educate the community, build public trust, and address the specific regional pushback associated with municipal fee-based services.
• The firm will ensure all messaging aligns with broader municipal communication standards and will provide sample text for FAQs and talking points to support this effort.
• Produce a mock bill to all property owners within the city prior to the utility's launch.
• Develop and deploy a public-facing, interactive GIS-based "property viewer."
• This tool must allow property owners to look up their specific parcel, view their measured impervious area, and understand their fee to build public trust.
• Strategies for managing anticipated public inquiries leading up to and immediately following the initial billing cycle, ensuring city staff are adequately supported.
3. Billing integration and financial policies
• Billing mechanism alternatives, specifically assessing the viability of executing billing through the city's property tax bills, water and sewer bill, or a standalone enterprise utility bill.
• Requirements and develop a plan for integration with the city's existing utility billing and Tyler ERP systems.
• Establish documented financial policies regarding delinquent accounts, collections strategies, and enforcement mechanisms.
4. Billing and data update operations procedures, appeals and abatement
• Standard operating procedures and a data maintenance plan to ensure the billing database remains accurate post-launch.
• This must clearly define the operational process for capturing new or modified impervious area and routinely updating the master billing file accordingly.
• Procedures to establish a streamlined, online appeals and abatement process closely tied to the property viewer, allowing ratepayers to easily contest IA calculations or report property changes.
5. Ordinance development and legal support
• Assist city staff and legal counsel with the development of necessary municipal ordinance updates to formally establish the utility.
• Ensure all proposed ordinances, fee structures, and collections policies are fully compliant with state laws regarding municipal fee-based services.