How Kennewick Irrigation District’s Administrative Fees Reduce Workload and Raise Funds
Housing development along KID water delivery infrastructure.
K
ennewick Irrigation District (KID) is located in the rapidly growing Tri-Cities area of Central Washington. In response to the ballooning of administrative tasks related to urbanization and property transfers, KID instituted several administrative fees and set up a web portal to supply relevant information to title companies. In this interview, KID Secretary and District Manager Chuck Freeman explains how a judicious introduction of service fees can improve service levels, reduce workload, and raise money. Irrigation Leader: Please introduce KID.
Irrigation Leader: How does KID raise funds?
28 | IRRIGATION LEADER | July/August 2022
Irrigation Leader: You also charge a fee for certain administrative tasks. Have you always charged for these things, or was the fee implemented in response to an increase in the workload? Chuck Freeman: We added some administrative fees after we determined the level of service we wanted our district to provide. During the level-of-service conversation, I discovered that we employed a full-time customer irrigationleadermagazine.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF KID.
Chuck Freeman: KID’s service area covers 20,201 acres, with 12,000 acres of production agriculture and 8,201 acres of high-density urban and rural suburban subdivisions. The district has over 25,000 customer accounts.
Chuck Freeman: We assess and charge customers based on the size of their parcel. We follow a tiered toll system, so prices vary for urban customers depending on their parcel size. In addition, we levy a flat rate for each parcel to fund our capital improvement fund and our new water infrastructure supply fund, which supports the identification of new water sources and the enhancement of our water supply from the Yakima and Columbia River systems.
