This guide provides no direct answers to the problems of stormwater finance. Instead, it provides a knowledge base from which answers can be developed. This knowledge base consists of summaries of the ways in which different people in different communities at different points in time have answered the standard set of questions about ways to pay for stormwater management programs. Successful programs are the result of careful choices that reflect attention to detail. Effective leaders, or program champions, are required to establish successful programs.
Effective leaders are curious and ask good questions that lead to other questions.
The ways that questions are answered determine the likelihood of success. Our manual illustrates how different communities have answered these questions. The manual focuses on answers to questions that are most likely to be transferable. It includes, for example, more information about different algorithms for determining stormwater user charges than examples of ways that managers have added stormwater charges to existing utility bills. It does so because algorithms for allocating charges are more likely to be transferable.