On Tuesday, October 20, 2026, during the City Council Workshop, Interim City Manager Mark Sullivan introduced Dave Fox, Vice President of Raftelis Consultants, to present their analysis of Rochester’s water and sewer funds and recommend potential options for the Council to consider.

According to the Raftelis website, Fox has more than 14 years of experience in utility financial and rate consulting. He has worked with water, wastewater, and stormwater utilities on a variety of studies, including cost-of-service and rate setting, impact fees, financial planning, utility valuation, economic feasibility and modeling, bond feasibility and coverage certificates, utility and customer affordability, data analysis, as well as water and wastewater benchmarking and rate surveys.

The City of Rochester engaged Raftelis to address concerns surrounding rate sufficiency given foreseeable capital investments. The goals of the study were to ensure long-term financial sustainability of the water and sewer utilities and assess the impacts of changes to Rochester’s utility customers.