Efforts by Kansas Rural Water Association to Assist With Preparation and Online Hosting of Consumer Confidence Reports

Making Lemonade from LemonsWhile it's important for water systems to communicate with their customers, it's too bad that Congress had to pass a law The Consumer Confidence Report -- to force that communication. But they did, and so being the idealists that we are, Kansas Rural Water Association suggested that systems make lemonade from the lemons.

Were Excited Theres Hope (maybe?)Kansas Rural Water Association advocated that systems do what they could to make their CCR user-friendly and readable and -- more interesting. KRWA got really excited over this and started of all things, an Annual CCR Contest.

KRWA Contests Some Examples of winners . . .

KRWA Tried To Make Everyone Happy -- Consumer Confidence Report CategoriesThree Award CategoriesRural Water Districts and Private SystemsSystems serving less than 25,000 populationSystems serving more than 25,000

Rural Water Districts & Privately Owned Systems2nd Place:Shawnee Cons. RWD 4

1st Place: Cowley County RWD 1

Municipals Serving less than 25,0002nd Place: City of Enterprise

1st Place: City of Holton

2nd Place: City of Garden CityMunicipals more than 25,000

1st Place City of Topeka

But . . . few systems ... little systems or big systems . . . shared KRWAs enthusiasm . . . Few in Kansas could muster the effort to produce anything more than what the law required and then something that most people didnt read. And they wondered why?

Not only did many system staff/boards not care, it was clearly evident that few customers were also not reading the CCR that was mailed to them. Most went to the trash and perhaps other innovative uses.

The Annual Cost to produce and mail the CCRs was estimated by Kansas Primacy at $900,000 annually.

Help From Your Association . . . Given it appeared CCR preparation was going to turn into nothing more than drudge work for systems many of which could not locate all the necessary testing data, KRWA began providing a service to format CCRs in 1999. Since 1999, KRWA has typically prepared 250 to 300 CCRs annually. Thats 30% of the total systems in the state.

Kansas RWAs Efforts On CCRsAnd then, to help systems even more, KRWA began providing copies of the CCRs folded, and tabbed. In 2010, 2011 and 2012, KRWA produced an average of 125,000 copies for systems. The price was always right -- in fact, KRWAs charges were less than local print shops (which was a goal too) and most importantly, KRWA WILL GET IT DONE!

Has CCR Prep A Big Money Maker for KS RWA? NO! And, that wasnt the goal!

KRWAs charge to format and print one hard copy of the CCR has been $50.

Costs of PrintingIn 2012 for example, the total charge to systems to prepare and print copies of CCRs was nearly $35,000. KRWAs expenses on that were the costs of paper and copy machine and approximately $4,000 in extra help. Not bad for a lot of evening and weekend busy-work.

Reasonable Rates!

QuantityPrintingFoldingTotal100$20$10.00$80.00200$40$12.50$102.50300$60$15.00$125.00500$68$20.00$138.00750$81$25.00$156.001000$95$30.00$175.001500$120$32.50$202.502000$145$35.00$230.00

But Why Are Systems Wasting The Paper and Postage? Its the LAW! Paper, paper and more paper . . . And postage and then TABS! With improvements in communications such as email and the Internet, why spend all the money for paper and postage? A simple question gone unanswered!

Its Time For Some Common Sense . . . enterFlorida Rural Water Association and Rep. Bill Young

Hosting on www.krwa.netAs an added service to water systems that do not have their own Web site, KRWA no hosts CCRs for systems. In 2013, KRWA posted 276 CCRs online at no additional charge to systems.

For the 276 CCRs that KRWA posted online in 2013, the estimated savings is $140,000!Systems Save!

Hosting on www.krwa.netExample URLs:www.krwa.net/ccr/axtellwww.krwa.net/ccr/manhattanwww.krwa.net/ccr/atchison5

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