In recognition of the need for long-term stormwater planning in Florida, the state’s policymakers have instituted a newly required 20-year stormwater needs analysis that must be completed by local governments providing stormwater services.
The requirement stipulates that by June 30, 2022, local governments must complete the 20-year needs analysis and send it, with supporting documentation, to the county. By July 31, 2022, counties must compile local reports, including their own, and submit them to the Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Office of Economic & Demographic Research (EDR).
The template that is to be used for the needs analysis is available on the EDR website.
With the deadline on the horizon, here are five key components you’ll need to prepare for your needs analysis submission:
1. Stormwater Management Program and System Description. The needs analysis begins with a detailed description of your Stormwater Management Program and your Stormwater Management System, defined as follows:
Stormwater Management Program: Your agency’s strategy for the management of urban, agricultural, and other stormwater runoff.
Stormwater Management System: Infrastructure designed and constructed to control rainfall runoff by collection, conveyance, storage, absorption, treatment, use, or reuse to prevent flooding and any impacts on the quantity or quality of system runoff.
You are required to estimate quantities of common types of infrastructure in your system, including green infrastructure, and provide a list of documents or resources that you use to track and manage stormwater infrastructure.
2. Geographic and Population Information. The needs analysis requests geographic and population information for the areas your municipality or Independent Special District serves, broken down into 5-year increments over the next 20 years and identifying any changes to the boundary that may occur over that time. Providing a GIS shapefile of the municipal boundary can simplify this part of the process.
3. Costs. Other parts of the needs analysis cover the costs associated with stormwater in your jurisdiction, including any expansion of or improvement to the system and any routine Operation and Maintenance (O&M) costs incurred. Expansions of the system must be further quantified in four separate categories.
The needs analysis also requests that you define whether funding for these O&M or expansion costs is traceable to a committed funding source or if no identified funding source is known. O&M costs should include the cost of any community outreach and education efforts, but all cost reporting should include only those expenditures that have or will flow through an approved budget.
4. Forthcoming Projects. The needs analysis requests that you provide a summary list of major projects identified for replacement due to old age or failure over the next 20 years. Major projects are defined as those single projects that make up greater than 5% of the total O&M expenditures over the most recent 5-year period.
5. Funding. Finally, the needs analysis delves into your capital expenditures and accounting, both looking backward at the past 5 years as well as forward, past the 20-year horizon. The analysis asks you to indicate how gaps in funding needs and availability can be addressed.
For the needs analysis, the EDR recommends using available data and best professional judgment, with the understanding that this effort requires forward-looking assumptions.
Looking beyond 2022, local governments and counties must complete and submit the 20-year stormwater analysis every five years; the next reporting cycle is slated to begin in 2027.
To learn how CMT’s team of stormwater and asset-management experts can support clients in managing their stormwater program and system, developing their 20-year stormwater needs analysis, and leveraging the new needs analysis to prepare for the future, contact us at questions@cmtengr.com.