Read the following scenario: You are the city manager of a municipality of 250,000 citizens located in a county with 250,000 amore residents living in unincorporated areas surrounding the city. Recently, a large automaker announced its plans to locate an assembly plant in the unincorporated area of the county. The new facility is expected to bring new growth to the city and county.
Through a joint service agreement with the county, the city furnishes water to all county residents and is expecting to provide service to the new auto plant. Historically, the user rates charged to county residents residing outside the city have been substantially higher than those charged to city residents. As a result of the higher user fees, the provision of water to unincorporated areas has been a source of revenue for the city.
The city's main water treatment plant is over 40 years old and is operating near capacity. Also, the maintenance costs of the plant are starting to increase at an alarming rate. With the anticipated new demand of more water, the city needs to make a decision about expanding its water treatment capacity.
The mayor and council are looking for guidance on how todetermine the best way to increase the city's water treatment capacity. Themayor is a former military officer and is familiar with the U.S. Army'sapproach to cost benefit analysis. The mayor is trying to convince her fellowcouncilmembers that the city needs to develop a cost benefit analysis todetermine the best course of action. You agree with the mayor's approach todecision making; however, some older members of the council have some doubtsabout the use of cost benefit analysis as a decision-making tool. The costbenefit doubters claim that they are elected to make decisions for the city,and they do not want to relinquish their decision-making responsibilities tosome opaque operations research technique that the average citizen could notpossibly understand. In order to convince the council of the value of costbenefit analysis, the mayor has asked you to: By Day 7 Write a 5-pagememorandum addressing the first four steps in the U.S. Army Cost BenefitAnalysis Guide as they relate to the city's need to increase its watertreatment capacity.
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