Operations and Maintenance Best Practices

Background

The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation's Village Safe Water (VSW) and Remote Maintenance Worker (RMW) Programs, in collaboration with the Rural Utility Business Advisor (RUBA) Program and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC), have developed criteria for assessing operations and maintenance capacity of rural water and wastewater utilities. The criteria, referred to as Operations and Maintenance Best Practices, is used for project scoring and prioritization for community sanitation projects funded through the VSW Capital Improvement Project (CIP) funding process.

Scores are broken into three categories: Technical, Financial, and Managerial. For all questions or concerns pertaining to Technical scores, please contact your assigned RMW. Contact your assigned RUBA regarding Managerial and Financial scoring concerns. If you feel that any portion of your community's score is inaccurate, it is important that you contact either your RMW or RUBA so that the data may be updated or corrected. RMW or RUBA contact list.

Scores are published annually in the Spring. The deadline for communities to provide documentation to RUBA and RMW staff for Spring scoring is December 31^st. The Spring scores are published in mid-March and are used for CIP funding, project scoring and prioritization. The time between the documentation deadline and the publication of scores allows RUBA and DEC to compile and review the data, complete quality control checks and then publish the scores. The most effective way to increase your community’s chance of receiving project funding is by improving your Best Practice score. The most effective way to increase your Best Practice score is by working with RUBA and your RMW.

It is important to note that the Best Practice score accounts for 40% of the points possible for CIP construction project scoring.

Please see the chart below as a reference.

	Spring Best Practices Scoring
Community Deadlines	December 31: Deadline to provide information and documentation to RUBA & RMW programs.
Scores Published	March: Spring Best Practice Scores are posted on the DEC Best Practices website and mailed to communities. These scores are used for CIP funding project scoring & prioritization.
Community Activity	Year-round: Communities should be familiar with their latest Best Practices score, and work consistently with technical assistance providers to improve the score before each community deadline.

Best Practices Guidance Documents

Resources to Help Communities Improve Best Practices Scores

Category	Scoring Criteria	Contacts	Resources and Sample Documents
Technical	Operator Certification Preventive Maintenance Plan Compliance	Operator Certification Program Drinking Water Program	Operator Certification and System Classification Database Example Preventive Maintenance Plan Drinking Water Watch Database, Monitoring Summary Access
Managerial	Utility Management Training Meetings of the Governing Body	Rural Utility Business Advisor (RUBA)	Video Overview of Managerial Capacity Best Practices Toolkit RUBA Training Calendar Sample Ordinance Sample Meeting Minutes
Financial	Budget Revenue Worker's Compensation Insurance Payroll Liability Compliance	RUBA	Video Overview of Financial Capacity Best Practices Toolkit Sample financial report

Spring 2024 Best Practices Scores

Select a community from the tabs below to see the Spring 2024 Best Practices Score:

Previous Best Practices Scores

See Best Practices Scores from previous scoring periods.

Sanitary Deficiency System (SDS)

To review the SDS Project Listing:

Go to the Division of Sanitation Facilities Construction webpage.
Under the "Featured Items" column on the right hand-side of the page click on the Project Listing pdf link.