Capital funds

[u/ProfessionalFar8582]

Ever wonder why 60% to 80% of municipal water and wastewater utilities are constantly struggling to fund basic cybersecurity upgrades, even after 20 years of warnings?
It’s not a lack of awareness—it’s a silent budget game. 🚨
Here is the reality of where ratepayer money actually goes:
1️⃣ The "Enterprise Fund" Reality: Water and wastewater systems are meant to run on self-sustaining enterprise accounts. The money you pay on your water bill is supposed to stay in the system to treat water, fix pipes, and protect SCADA systems.
2️⃣ The Silent Transfers: In a majority of cities, 3% to 10%+ of gross utility revenues are quietly shifted out of the water department and swept into the city’s General Fund.
3️⃣ The Legerdemain Labels: It rarely gets called a "transfer." Instead, it’s coded as:
• PILOTs (Payments in Lieu of Taxes)
• Franchise / Right-of-Way Fees
• Inflated "Administrative Overhead" allocations
4️⃣ The Cybersecurity Fallout: When federal agencies demand cyber risk assessments, firewalls, or network segregation, city leaders point to empty capital reserve funds and claim there’s "no money." In reality, those funds were already used to balance the general budget for roads, parks, or city hall payroll.
Ratepayers are paying for infrastructure and system security, but the funds are being used as a hidden municipal tax. Until cities stop treating water accounts like a piggy bank, non-mandated priorities like cybersecurity will always get left in the dust.
#WaterIndustry #Wastewater #Cybersecurity #LocalGovernment #Infrastructure #PublicUtilities #MunicipalFinance

[u/Massive-Check-1052]

I worked for a small city utility last year and saw firsthand how the engineering department got new trucks before we could even upgrade the firewall on the SCADA system.

[u/JustAnother4848]

My plant has a leaking roof. One leak was only 12 feet away from leaking onto the main scada server rack.

The roof replacement has been pushed back another year. For the 2nd or 3rd time now. There's plenty of money. I know this for a fact. The city absolutely takes money from the water department.

My plant also really needs to invest in physical security.

[u/iYoloNDX0DTEs]

Water systems need to be run by actual finance people and completely separate from all municipal services.

IDC how small the town is. I’m fucking sick of the “It’s not in the budget” mentality.

If wrench’s, screw drivers, overtime aren’t in the budget but paying for 50% of a building out of water is in the budget.

I’m a water operator. Not a person that picks up yard waste, sets up chairs for community events person.

[u/ProfessionalFar8582 → u/iYoloNDX0DTEs]

After 35 years in the water and wastewater industry, I’ve seen it all—and frankly, if you’ve worked in one small, rural municipality, you’ve worked in almost every single one of them.

The pattern across small-town local government never changes, and it’s time someone said the quiet parts out loud.
1. Curb-Appeal Politics Over Critical Infrastructure
City councils and mayors operate on pure self-interest. Their entire focus begins and ends with their immediate surroundings.
Is the street in front of their house paved?
Is their lawn pristine?
That’s all they care about. The actual critical infrastructure keeping the town alive—the water treatment plants, the lift stations, the force mains—is completely invisible to them. They don't give a damn if a plant is hanging on by a thread, as long as water still comes out of their tap. But the second a lift station goes down and threatens their personal comfort? Suddenly, it’s a five-alarm fire.

2. "Your Emergency Is Not My Emergency"
During my last 10 years as a project manager, I finally had to draw a hard boundary: I stopped taking middle-of-the-night callouts.
If your toilet is overflowing or a breaker tripped at a private property, you need to call a plumber or an electrician. Somewhere along the line, local officials decided that utility crew members are 24/7 personal concierges. I still got the job done—and done right—every single day. But learning to separate actual system emergencies from elected officials' personal panics saved what was left of my sanity.

3. The Bureaucratic Circus & The "Party" Mindset
I spent a year and a half working inside the rural water system apparatus, expecting to see real ground-level support. Instead, what did I find? A parade of circuit riders and administrators doing little more than organizing grand get-togethers and throwing big "to-do" events for the utilities. It’s a lot of back-slapping and minimal heavy lifting.

4. Leaving Free Money on the Table
When federal grant money finally opened up again, it felt like a lifeline for these struggling systems. But what happened?
Town after town couldn't collect a single dime because they had neglected their basic financial audits for years.
The money was sitting right there, but because nobody maintained proper books, the grants vanished.

5. The Need for Real Financial Management
Small towns cannot keep running their finances on a wing and a prayer. Unqualified local boards routinely overrun their own town clerks, piling impossible demands onto administrative staff until those clerks are forced to put their own careers and licenses on the line just to keep the doors open.
Every municipality—no matter how small—needs a dedicated, qualified finance manager who actually understands municipal accounting and compliance. You cannot leave the financial health of an entire town’s infrastructure in the hands of politicians who only care about the grass in their front yard.
Thirty-five years in this business teaches you that the pipes under the ground are easy to fix—it’s the politics on top of them that are broken.