Platinum Award for Utility Excellence
Like the Gold Award for Exceptional Utility Performance, the criteria for the Platinum Award for Utility Excellence are based on the Ten Attributes of Effective Utility Management and the Keys to Management Success. Applicants are expected to show progress in implementing the attributes and keys, as well as a distinctive level of management expertise and expanded utility achievement.
Three years after winning a Gold Award, member utilities are eligible to apply for the Platinum Award for Utility Excellence.
Recent Award Winners
Saint Paul Regional Water Services
2006 Platinum Award for Utility Excellence
Saint Paul Regional Water Services continually updates its capital improvement program and its strategic plan for technology and IT solutions. Water quality enhancement efforts are marked by replacement of the current filtering system with granular activated carbon and continuation of a corrosion control program.The utility reduced O&M costs by $2.4 million over five years without employee layoffs, undue increases in water rates, or a decrease in services.
Santa Clara Valley Water District
2006 Platinum Award for Utility Excellence
The Santa Clara Valley Water District organizational vision includes managing for clean water and watersheds, managing environmental impacts, implementing management practices, and measuring efforts to reduce costs and resources without sacrificing quality or reliability.The District adopted the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Program Framework for improving organizational performance and has integrated a four-tier performance measurement dashboard, ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and Green Business certifications.
Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority
2005 Platinum Award for Utility Excellence
In 2003, the Albuquerque Water and Sewer Utility became the multi-jurisdictional Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority. The utility moved forward with multiple initiatives to improve its services, ensure water supply to meet future demand, fulfill increasingly stringent water and wastewater quality requirements, and create a more efficient and effective organization.
Broward County Water and Wastewater Services
2005 Platinum Award for Utility Excellence
Broward County Water and Wastewater Services showed its commitment to competitive initiatives in many ways, including a financial plan that called for the cash financing of many renewal and replacement projects at a level equal to annual system depreciation. The budget maintained high quality services for its customers, maximized efficiencies, and continued an aggressive capital improvement program while minimizing rate increases. The utility implemented a long-term capital improvement modernization program for its operating plants and an extensive rebuild program for its neighborhoods and underground structures.
Butler County Department of Environmental Sciences
2005 Platinum Award for Utility Excellence
Improvement initiatives at the Butler County Department of Environmental Sciences allowed the utility to successfully control costs, provide high-quality water and sewer service, and exhibit exceptional environmental stewardship through public outreach programs. In recent regionalization initiatives, Butler County joined with four neighboring water and sewer utilities and three municipalities to provide service to County residents, assuring customers of an adequate supply of water and high levels of service at reasonable rates.
City of Henderson Utility Services
2005 Platinum Award for Utility Excellence
The City of Henderson Utility Services played a significant role in the City's upgraded bond rating, achieving an exceptional safety record and gaining community support for extensive capital programs to support growth, and continuing to provide value priced products. In the past decade, the utility successfully responded to serious drought and double-digit growth in the community. During this time, it increased rates less than the rate of inflation and maintained customer satisfaction at 90 percent.
City of Norfolk Department of Utilities
2005 Platinum Award for Utility Excellence
The City of Norfolk Department of Utilities achieved competitiveness through benchmarking nationally and partnering with 17 localities regionally. The department conducted focus groups for customer feedback, and maintained excellent communication between top leadership and employees. It partnered with two local universities to research better reservoir management and water treatment techniques, and also offers on-site degree programs for employees. In addition, the department conducted planning for hurricanes and other emergencies and participated on technical advisory committees to develop statewide water supply planning regulations.
East Bay Municipal Utility District
2005 Platinum Award for Utility Excellence
Many of the accomplishments of the East Bay Municipal Utility District were guided by its strategic plan and included the creation of a new centralized customer contact system, implementation of an ongoing energy management strategy, and the establishment of employee development programs to build supervisory and leadership skills. A new customer contact system improved customer response and tracking for greater efficiency. The energy management strategy resulted in a hydropower revenue increase of over $2 million annually while simultaneously reducing energy purchase costs by nearly $1 million each year.
Fort Wayne City Utilities
2005 Platinum Award for Utility Excellence
Fort Wayne City Utilities sustained a competitive edge through benchmarking, strategic business planning, listening to its customers, using technology, and improving efficiency and effectiveness. Its business plan was used to drive the allocation of resources and to ensure the achievement of its goals in regulatory compliance, application of technology, stakeholder involvement, asset management and organizational excellence.
Greater Cincinnati Water Works
2005 Platinum Award for Utility Excellence
The Greater Cincinnati Water Works utilized the Strategic Business Plan process to provide a blueprint for its competitive efforts. A performance measurement system ensured its focus on the issues identified by customer surveys. Use of technology, such as the conversion of its meter reading to a radio read setup, reduced operational costs and provided improved customer service. Distribution system, water treatment plants and plant process improvements provided an abundant supply of high quality water at a reasonable cost and positioned Cincinnati to expand services and further spread costs.
Kansas City Water Services Department
2005 Platinum Award for Utility Excellence
The Kansas City Water Services Department's 10-year competitive business plan includes performance targets and action items to upgrade infrastructure and facilities, improve service levels and minimize annual operating costs. The plan aims to reduce response and repair time to main breaks while increasing the performance of more preventative maintenance and doubling the amount of capital projects the Engineering Services Divisions oversees.
Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department
2005 Platinum Award for Utility Excellence
To improve services, the Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department implemented an Efficiency Business Plan with benchmarks, staffing plans and 120 opportunities for improvements. The utility worked towards improvements by empowering employees to submit new ideas, implementing efficiency projects, providing financial incentives to employees for documented efficiency savings, and investing in employees through a comprehensive training program, competitive salary adjustments and a bonus incentive program. These initiatives proved successful as the utility's water and sewer rates are among the lowest in the country. In a resident satisfaction survey, 87 percent of Miami-Dade customers rated services as good to excellent.