Featured Innovation: Streamlining for Stormwater
The City of Amarillo needed help prioritizing the efforts of the Amarillo Drainage Utility to meet the community’s needs and maximize the available funding.As a subconsultant, Freese and Nichols developed and conducted a survey of Drainage Utility customers, reviewed development standards and criteria, recommended updates and prioritized the identified list of capital improvement projects. Freese and Nichols established objective criteria to help City staff prioritize projects based on the overall goals of the Drainage Utility.
By leveraging the available data in GIS, the Amarillo Drainage Utility was able to focus the available dollars on projects that meet the strategic goals of the community and demonstrate a business case, helping to build support among citizens and elected officials. The City now has a fully functioning and up-to-date framework to prioritize capital improvement projects according to the City’s strategic vision.
This framework allows the City of Amarillo to better visualize where it should spend its money in its stormwater program.