LADWP welcomes the findings of the latest City Charter-mandated Industrial, Economic and Administrative Survey (IEA Survey) of the Department, performed by Navigant Consulting and overseen by the Controller’s Office, the Mayor’s Office and the City Council. We view the survey conclusions positively as they are fair in acknowledging our strengths, as well as providing informed recommendations about areas of improvement.

Overall, the IEA Survey findings acknowledge much of the progress we have made and our Department successes as we plan for the future of water and power in Los Angeles. The Survey notes:

-“The Department’s water and power resource goals are well-developed and contain significant and appropriate initiatives, which are in alignment with key policies of the City of Los Angeles and have been well-communicated to stakeholders.
-Navigant considers the Department to be moving in the right direction for a California utility in this complex and transformational time. In particular, it is proceeding with the difficult transition from coal generation to renewable resources and is undertaking other power system modernization efforts, and is focusing on securing local, diverse water supplies.
-The Department has thoroughly designed strategies to accomplish its resource goals, with generally comprehensive implementation plans.”
-Overall, the Department has maintained reliable water and power supplies.

The Executive Summary on Rates Benchmarking states:

-“Overall, this study shows that the Department’s rate levels are reasonable when compared to the peer panel, especially given LADWP’s unique set of challenges related to its size and the characteristics of its service area. However, it is likely that the Department’s rates will increase as it seeks additional funding to address current and new challenges, including the maintenance, repair and replacement of its aging infrastructure, the transition from coal to natural gas and the development of its local water resources…”

LADWP appreciates the constructive feedback from the IEA Survey that will assist us as we continuously improve our Department. We concur that the following are significant and overarching challenges, as well as opportunities, that we should improve upon:

-Siloed Operations: We agree that silos, to a certain extent, still exist within the Department, and that a more concerted effort to increase the transfer of knowledge, processes and technology among the water, power and joint systems will significantly increase our effectiveness and costs.
-Program Implementation at Scale: As we continue to scale up major capital programs to modernize infrastructure and comply with regulatory mandates, we acknowledge that any inefficiencies in our hiring, procurement, and contracting processes will hinder our efforts to meet our program and performance targets. We will continue working alongside the City to streamline and improve our processes while maintaining the necessary checks and balances.
-Accountability, Transparency, Performance: The IEA Survey calls for us to improve performance through the reporting of key metrics. We have initiated that process through the creation of DWPStat, and by providing the data to the Mayor’s Open Data site and to the Controller’s website. In addition, consistent with the IEA Survey and the Office of Public Accountability / Ratepayer Advocate’s (Ratepayer Advocate) recommendations, our proposed rate Ordinance includes key performance metrics and targets that must be reported to the Board, Ratepayer Advocate, and when warranting their attention, to the Council, along with mitigation plans when the Department’s performance is below target.

The IEA Survey also contains more detailed recommendations (labeled High, Medium, and Low Priority Recommendations) for our consideration. We take these very seriously, and will ask all our operating divisions for their review and recommendations for action. In particular, LADWP will act to improve the Department’s Administrative Infrastructure focus areas, including Security, Emergency Preparedness, Technology Infrastructure, Customer Service, and Economic Development and Community Outreach. The IEA survey noted these to have the most opportunity for significant progress.

To facilitate our work, we agree with the recommendation that, working alongside the City, LADWP’s Corporate Performance Group will oversee our progress in addressing the IEA Survey recommendations over the next five years. Corporate Performance is the division in our Department whose primary objective is to improve LADWP’s overall performance as an organization through enhanced accountability, transparency and reporting.

We thank the Controller’s Office, the Mayor’s Office, the City Council and consultant Navigant for the evaluation. We will review the IEA Survey that will help us continue to deliver sustainable and affordable water and power through reliable customer service.

The IEA Survey is available here.