Financial strength is crucial for a utility’s sustainability, affordability is critical for a utility’s public health mission, and progressive pricing is important for equity. Balancing rising costs and the need to invest in infrastructure with affordability and equity can be challenging.

Our assessment of water utility financial strength involves capital financing capacity, liquidity, affordability, and proportionality in pricing. Utilities received strong marks for showing ample financing capacity and financial liquidity to handle unexpected contingencies, and for low taxes on water utility revenue. Utilities also earned credit for low residential service prices at modest volumes and for progressive water rate structures (i.e., lower prices for lower volumes and increasing prices at higher volumes).

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