The lead service line compliance landscape facing American water utilities in 2026 is unlike any regulatory challenge the sector has experienced in a generation. The EPA's Lead and Copper Rule Improvements — finalized in October 2024 — require every community water system in the country to fully replace all lead
Every local government department has a budget. Every department has an obligation to spend that budget effectively — not just avoiding overspending, but ensuring that appropriated funds are fully deployed in service of the residents they were allocated to serve. And in most municipalities, the visibility that department heads need to
Smart water meters are one of the most discussed technology investments in local government utility management — and one of the most practically impactful ones actually being deployed at scale across mid-size American cities right now. The conversation around smart metering often stays at the level of capability description: these
Every local government data professional knows the report. It comes due at the end of every month without exception. It pulls data from three or four different systems — the call center platform, the ERP system, the work order management tool, maybe a separate billing export. Someone spends two to four
Every local government data professional reaches a point where they are maintaining both PowerBI dashboards and Excel workbooks simultaneously — and wondering whether that redundancy is necessary or whether one tool should replace the other. The honest answer is that neither replaces the other. Microsoft is not replacing Excel with PowerBI.
The numbers behind America's water infrastructure challenge are sobering. U.S. drinking water infrastructure received a C-grade from the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2025, with 6 billion gallons of treated water lost daily to leaks across a pipe network where many cast-iron mains are
A utility billing department operates at the intersection of two distinct accountability frameworks simultaneously — and most KPI lists written about utility billing miss this entirely. The first framework is financial. A utility billing department is responsible for generating the revenue that funds water, sewer, and stormwater services for an entire
If you read our guide to the 10 most important KPIs for public works departments, you already know what to measure. This article is the implementation guide — how to take a standard work order system export and build a dashboard in Excel that makes those metrics visible to the people
The phrase "smart city" has been circulating in local government circles for over a decade. For much of that time it described an aspiration more than a reality — a future state where sensors, data, and connectivity would transform how cities operated, presented mostly through conference keynotes and federal
There is no single best data tool for urban planners. That statement will frustrate anyone looking for a simple answer — but it reflects the reality of how data work actually happens in local government. A city analyst building a billing performance dashboard reaches for PowerBI. A database administrator pulling records
Budget data is one of the most important and most underutilized assets in local government. Every department has an appropriated budget. Every department tracks expenditures. And in most cities, that data sits in an ERP system or finance department spreadsheet — accessible to accountants, invisible to department heads, and entirely opaque
Housing affordability is one of the most politically charged topics in local government — and one of the most analytically misunderstood. The phrase gets used constantly in council meetings, planning documents, and community conversations, but the underlying data that should anchor those conversations is rarely examined with precision. This article cuts