Start with the funding, because it changes the conversation. State revolving fund programmes, and several federal ones, pay for consolidation and regionalisation planning directly, in many cases as principal forgiveness or as a grant rather than as a loan. A small system that cannot fund a study out of rates can frequently have one funded by the programme that would also fund the resulting project.
Which programme, and on what terms, depends on the state and on the year’s intended use plan. Finding the route is part of the work and it happens before the study is scoped.
What we do
Two systems, held apart, and then held together.
Apart. Each system’s current revenue requirement, debt service and coverage, rate structure and bill at the usage levels its own customers actually consume at. This is a rate study on each side, and it has to be done properly, because every comparison afterwards is measured against it.
Together. The capital cost of physically joining them, from the engineer’s estimate. The combined operating cost, with the shared functions consolidated and the ones that cannot be shared left alone. The combined debt: both existing schedules, plus whatever the interconnection requires, tested against both existing covenants. Then the combined revenue requirement, and the rate that meets it.
Separately again. The rate effect on each community, stated on its own. This is the part that decides whether the thing happens. A combined rate that averages two systems moves one community’s bill down and the other’s up, and a study that reports only the average has hidden the objection rather than answered it.
What you get
The written study, structured so each governing body can read its own community’s section without reading the other’s. The combined financial model, which is yours. The funding analysis: which programmes the resulting project qualifies for, what each requires, and what the terms do to the rate. Bill impacts by usage level for each community. Slides for both bodies, and us at both meetings.
What we will not do
We will not recommend consolidation. We calculate what each option costs and what it does to each community’s bills, and the decision belongs to two elected bodies who answer to two sets of residents.
We will not assume operating savings we cannot trace to a specific position, contract or facility. Consolidation savings are frequently asserted and frequently smaller than asserted, and an unsourced efficiency assumption is the fastest way for a study to be dismissed by whichever side it disadvantages.
We will not do the engineering. The interconnection alignment, the hydraulic modelling and the capital cost estimate come from an engineer, and we take that figure as an input.
Fit
Best fit: two adjacent retail systems where at least one has a capital or compliance obligation it cannot fund alone, and both governing bodies have agreed to look at the question. A regional authority or a state programme office scoping the same question across several small systems is also a fit.
Poor fit: where one party has already decided and wants a document supporting the decision. That study exists and we are not the people to write it.
Why the price is fixed
Because the funding programmes pay against a defined scope and a defined deliverable, and because a study whose cost depends on how long the negotiation takes is a study nobody can budget for. The fee is set by the size of the two systems and by what state of record each is in.