One Water Board Receives Updates on Shared Service Opportunities

Louisville Water and MSD start 2018 with new opportunities in the One Water initiative.  As a reminder, One Water is not a new company or organization. One Water is about the value of water. It’s a partnership between Louisville Water and MSD to improve customer service, identify revenue opportunities and take advantage of cost savings that benefit the community.

In the One Water initiative, employees “share” services with both organizations through work orders but remain either a Louisville Water or MSD employee. A board that includes members of both the MSD board and the Board of Water Works oversee the effort along with guidance from Mayor Greg Fischer’s office.

At today’s One Water board meeting, members heard about the newest shared services that are underway. Louisville Water and MSD have combined their purchasing teams and MSD’s Rene’ Patterson-Thomas is managing the effort. Recently, a communications effort began with Louisville Water’s Kelley Dearing Smith overseeing communications at both organizations. Fleet and Information Technology are also combined under joint leadership.

In the procurement area, Thomas highlighted a new opportunity for a buyer who would be a MSD employee responsible for bidding information technology projects at both Louisville Water and MSD. These bids could be separate or a joint bid. Thomas and her team are also looking at developing bid templates for joint bids and identifying goods and services that can be bid together.

Ultimately, the goal for the One Water effort is becoming the “utility of the future,” where there’s less dependency on customer use patterns, there’s a continuous focus on improving infrastructure, water and sewer rate increases are more stable, and there’s improved customer service.