For elected officials and water utility boards

Public utility oversight

What officials should ask

Water-loss oversight requires reliable records, a realistic work program, and a way to check whether spending produces results. A board should ask staff to connect the audit to documented actions and the budget.

What Georgia requires

Rule 391-3-33-.03 applies to systems regularly serving 3,300 or more people. Under Rule 391-3-33-.04, covered systems submit the prior calendar year’s audit by March 1 with a QWLA certification and documentation of its basis. Rule 391-3-33-.05 requires a water loss control program, individual efficiency goals, and progress. It describes how progress is considered in specified permitting decisions.

The ten questions below are management practices for oversight. They are not ten separate statutory duties, and this site’s comparisons do not establish a legal violation.

A ten-point review

1. Confirm the audit and its version. Obtain the complete workbook, comments, certification, submission date, and any revision. Identify the audit year, not just the publication date.
2. Establish the system boundary. Ask what production, imports, exports, storage, mains, and services the balance covers, and whether that boundary changed.
3. Check supply measurements. Review source and import/export meter tests, correction factors, missing readings, and the calculation trail.
4. Reconcile consumption. Ask how meter readings and billing periods were aligned with the calendar year and how authorized unbilled uses were estimated.
5. Examine apparent-loss estimates. Request customer-meter test results, billing reconciliation, and identification of defaults. Ask what evidence supports each estimate.
6. Test the leakage explanation. Connect reported real-loss changes to leak surveys, repair dates, tank overflow records, and pressure evidence. Separate changed estimates from documented field work.
7. Set measurable goals. Review a current control program with baselines, responsible staff, deadlines, costs, and measures appropriate to the system and its data quality.
8. Compare competing expenditures. Compare meter work, active leak detection, faster repairs, pressure work, and targeted main replacement against other obligations such as treatment, storage, and service reliability. State the expected benefit and uncertainty for each.
9. Check the economics and financing. Review purchase contracts and cost calculations, maintenance and staffing costs, project life, debt service, and affordability. Consider GEFA infrastructure financing and water-loss technical assistance; verify current eligibility and terms with GEFA rather than assuming a rate or award.
10. Return to the result. Put a follow-up date on the public agenda. Compare completed work and costs with the original estimate, explain changes, and decide the next action.

Track decisions in public

Use the editable table for meeting preparation. Record a specific question, the evidence requested, and the next review date. Print or save a copy before leaving the page; edits are working notes, not an official submission.

Sources: Georgia’s adopted rules establish the legal requirements. EPD’s audit page provides current program materials. Financing links lead to GEFA’s official program information; no funding award or loan rate is assumed here.