LGARD'S NETWORKS FOR RURAL POLICY DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

Interview Summary

RECOGNIZE NEED

Community Issues Identified:
OEPA is frequently the organization to recognize the need yet, communities do not always feel as if OEPA offers the technical assistance they need to move forward.

Health Departments are not inspecting all septic systems regularly, just on a complaint basis.   (Many Mayors supported Ohio House Bill that required Health Departments to take on this task.)

Citizens do not always see the value in their community having proper water and wastewater infrastructure.

Communities that are not metered do not see the importance of water as a valuable resource.

Some communities do not want growth/economic development as defined by some funder's guidelines. (For example, some of the small communities would just like permits for a laundry mat or car wash.)

There are inconsistencies in mortgage lender systems of requiring testing of septic tanks.

Citizens do not necessarily know what to look for in a failed system (septic or wastewater treatment system), and how to properly report problems.

External Issues Identified:

• A problem with Ohio House bill relative to septic system inspections was that there was no provision for funding the required staffing increase.
• Mine drainage may be masking communities' ability to recognize need.
• There does not seem to be any follow-up on communities that take out planning loans, and then never build a system.

LEADERSHIP

Community Issues Identified :
The local officials are aware of many resource professionals, but are not sure who to contact for what.

Professional growth opportunities (such as training sessions and networking) are available, but difficult to attend due to limited time.

Useful information is needed to help convince citizens of the need for wastewater infrastructure, or the consequences of not doing anything.

Risks need to be reduced for elected officials to make it easier to take that “first step”. (For example, planning grants rather than loans and/or agency technical assistance to reduce that risk.

Economies of scales (either through annexation or through cooperative agreements with communities nearby) are not always considered. Perhaps with the help of a third party (such as LDDs), more economical systems could be built in some areas.

The ability to which a Mayor can convey the necessity of a project, and particularly the needed rate increases, is critical to project success.

Leaders need to be able to communicate and articulate their vision to their citizens.

LDDs provide more of an administration, fund management role rather than a leadership role.

Federal and state regulations and legislation effect rural communities, but the communities have little input.

External Issues Identified :

• There needs to be a paradigm shift as far as best and appropriate solutions, we need to look beyond sewers, as the best option to decentralized and on-site systems as potentially a better option.
• Mayors need to be empowered so they feel free to communicate with engineers and funders to explore all options and get the best for the community.
• Local administrative capacity is limited in a lot of small communities (a possible solution may be to use the CDBG formula money for salary to support this).

DESIGN

Community Issues Identified:
In some cases community designs have been proposed that funders would not pay for.

In some cases communities received bad design advice, i.e., recommendations for something that they later found out was not necessary.

There is some pressure for lay people to make “technical design decisions” that they may not have the expertise to make.

OEPA tells a community that they must do something, but not always what to do and rarely how to do it (design and financing).

OEPA was criticized for taking a long time to review plans.

Communities need help costing out and evaluating alternatives.

The consultants are used to designing large systems, these are not the most economical for small communities.

“You get what you pay for” i.e., if the consulting firm isn't charging you, they may also not be giving you much service (At the very beginning of a project, this has been a problem for some communities. They aren't at a point where they want to pay for an engineer, but what they get for free, or a small fee, just doesn't get them very far.)

Large firms may not send their best engineers out to service small communities with small projects.

Small towns may need to put their faith in an engineering company whereas larger cities have staff that can do a lot of the design work.

Even interviewing thoroughly and asking for references doesn't seem to ensure the communities will get a good engineering consulting firm.

External Issues Identified:

• Some engineering firms may not be willing to design special small systems, as they are afraid they won't be funded.   It is easier to design something you know works and will be funded, even if it isn't the most appropriate design for a small community.
• OEPA-DEFA suggested communities need to be empowered to demand consultants look at all options.
• OEPA-DEFA thought there could be some additional technical research into small wastewater treatment systems, but in general, the problem seemed more to be whether OEPA would fund such systems, not whether the technology is adequate.
• OEPA-DEFA needs to get involved at the earliest stage possible in the design phase rather than later in the financing phase.
• OEPA often identifies the problem, but does not provide the necessary technical assistance, leaving communities to get that assistance through consultants.
• Ohio is one of the states left behind on on-site decentralized approaches.
• Ohio needs to establish treatment standards.
• In Ohio, accepted practices versus established rules may hinder some options such as cluster systems from being funded.
• Ohio needs to have a state policy regulating on-site systems.

FINANCE

Community Issues Identified:
Design solutions most appropriate for small communities (on-site systems or cluster systems) are often not fundable.

“Politics” plays an important role in who gets funding (ex. Issue 2 funding).

“Proper” rate structures (including metering, the concept of “enterprise funds”, and having adequate repair and replace budgets) are important in obtaining grants, yet there is little guidance available on how to go about this.

Planning grants, while scarce, are appreciated by rural communities that don't have engineers on staff and are also hesitant to take risks.

The current funding schemes were developed with larger cities in mind.   Rural communities struggle to work effectively within these schemes.

Mayors have little guidance on deciding the appropriate balance of loans versus grants, and speed versus patience in completing a project and they don't feel they have access to this information from other communities.

Mayors have little experience knowing what is a “good deal” relative to financial packages they are offered.

Putting together a project financial package is difficult and time consuming. Once you get to a certain point, the pieces all fall together, but getting to that point is difficult.

Most communities don't do the grant writing themselves for large infrastructure projects.   The village's engineering firm usually does it as part of the consulting fee.   There is also assistance from RCAP or the LDDs or community development personnel, but that seems to be later in the process or not available to some communities.   How can communities get assistance in grant writing as early as possible?

Grants often require a match from local communities, but the match amount is sometimes more than a small rural community can afford. Even grants that allow “in-kind” for the match are biased against small communities because the small communities don't have the staff (and thus staff time) they can use for the match.

Grants often come with too many “strings” that encumber small communities. Just knowing and understanding the rules is sometimes difficult.

Many Mayors feel overwhelmed by the amount of information available about grants and loans and feel they may not have the expertise or staff to process all that information.

The lack of money available, especially grants, or “high” interest rates on loans was mentioned by some Mayors as being a problem.   With expected budget cuts, this may become more critical.

Building a school is economic development in the eyes of small villages; however, this may not be the case to many funders.

Financing projects that cross county lines are particularly difficult to coordinate.

Communities often struggle with the dilemma that you need to know the design to apply for financing, but you don't know what design to choose until you know how much it will cost. Often projects are driven by the funding available, not the community's needs.

External Issues Identified :

• Not much information is available about sources of funding for property owners.
• “Free money” or grant funds is not always an efficient and fair use of government money.
• Grants that do no include administrative money reduce a community's capacity to develop and implement projects.
• The enforcement division of OEPA should be providing earlier notification to OEPA_DEFA so that all financing and design options are considered.

BUILD

Community Issues Identified:
Project oversight is necessary, but many rural elected officials are unprepared or lack the expertise.

It takes a long time for a project to be built, i.e., from the time a project is conceptualized until it is finally built.

MAINTAIN

Community Issues Identified:
Leaky water systems cost a community money and may even lead to requiring a system's capacity to be upgraded unnecessarily.

Coordinating waterline repair and replacement work with road construction is most efficient, but now always possible.

Qualified and certified water and wastewater system operators are expensive and hard to find.

Lack of meters in some communities leads to increased consumption and reduces the life of a system.

Maintenance pays off in the long run, but it is too easy to delay it when you don't have money.

Health Departments should be doing more to educate people about proper maintenance of septic tanks.