Public-Private Partnerships Prove Positive for Municipalities
The Water Partnership Council released its first report on public-private partnerships to mayors and other municipal officials attending the United States Conference of Mayors’ Annual Meeting.
Based on interviews with 31 community leaders currently engaged in public-private partnerships, “An Evaluation of Public-Private Partnerships for Water and Wastewater Systems” says that satisfaction with partnerships is high, employees are satisfied, and impacts on the environment, customers, and community are positive.
“The Water Partnership Council has compiled the first statistical data about the impacts of public-private partnerships, and it comes straight from the people who know best: officials who have partnerships in their communities today,” says Water Partnership Council President Leonard F. Graziano.
Among the report’s findings:
• 50 percent of respondents rate overall satisfaction with the partnership as “extremely satisfied,” the highest possible ranking.
• 74 percent rate regulatory compliance as being better under the partnership than prior to it.
• 92 percent of respondents that projected cost savings achieved those savings. The other eight percent indicate it is too early in the partnership to tell.
“As a city, we dabble in everything,” says Leominster, MA, Mayor Dean Mazzerella, one of more than a dozen public officials quoted in the 20-page report. “[The private partners] are specialized. They have the expertise that far exceeds what we could provide our customers.”
For additional information, visit www.govinfo.bz/5195-158.