Maryville’s new Water Treatment Plant has officially moved into a new phase of development following approval from the City Council Monday evening.
To move this forward, Council enacted three separate ordinances, which City Manager Ryan Heiland explained in a presentation. He began by delving into Maryville’s involvement in the Missouri Clean Water State Revolving Fund program, which is a federal partnership administered by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and a loan the city has to pay back. Residents approved $50 million in funding for this in a bond election Feb. 4, 2025.
“Back in October of ’25, we were notified that we were included on the Intended Use Plan,” Heiland said. “Essentially, what…DNR says is that, in principle, ‘We agree to fund your project; however, you still need to do these following things.’ Tonight is some of those things that we have to do to keep moving towards closing on that SRF.”
The standard loan period for this SRF is 20 years, but up to 30 years is available if needed. With the 20-year route, the city can expect to make an average annual payment of $3,135,280.49, which comes out to $261,273.37 a month.
The city has had a combined water and wastewater fund since May 1992, but Heiland said the SRF requires subaccounts. These subaccounts were created with the passage of the Model Use and User Change ordinances.
“The Model Use Ordinance updates the legal framework to control connections to the water system, enforce safe installation operations, and, really, the proposed ordinance are designed to ensure that the city’s water system has enough funds to operate and that we continue to maintain and upgrade over time,” Heiland said.
He said the Model Use Ordinance provides an amendment to some of Maryville’s city codes, which allows for the changes necessary to remain eligible for the SRF.
The User Change Ordinance, Heiland said, would determine how the city charges for water and what the funds are put toward.
“It does create legal framework for charging water customers,” Heiland said. “It does require the water and wastewater subaccounts, as I mentioned, established billing rules, penalties…financial accountability and annual rate review.”
Maryville’s Assistant Finance Director Cheyenne Murphy said subaccounts are simply a way to organize a very large fund. She said the city will continue collecting revenue in the same way; that income will be broken into smaller, more defined accounts.
Murphy said this gives city staff a clear picture of what’s going on within the larger fund, which sets Maryville up for long-term investment opportunities, as it is a more stable financial model.
“You can think of these different subaccounts as buckets,” Murphy said. “So in theory, we’re just going to take the revenue and divide them and make a reserve in each bucket, and that way, we can track the expenses. We allocate those portions, we track it to its intended use, that’s listed in the ordinance, and then when the expenses occur, they are coded to the appropriate subaccount.”
Maryville is partnered with HDR Engineering for the new Water Treatment Plant and Crossland Heavy Contractors for construction manager at-risk services. The entities have spent the past several months looking at project scheduling, cost estimation and bid packaging, among many other factors, and they have reached a mutually agreed upon Guaranteed Maximum Price.
This GMP is $44,769,895.84. Including the $7,081,000 going to HDR Engineering and the $260,000 going to Crossland Heavy Contractors, the total project amounts to $52,110,895.84.
Of this amount, $50 million is covered by the SRF loan, and a Disadvantaged Community Grant worth $2.5 million brings the total project budget to $52.5 million — allowing for some flexibility.
There is still a lot of work to be done with the Water Treatment Plant project, but Heiland said the city should be able to start physical work on it soon.
“We’re looking at potentially breaking ground, (starting) the dewatering process of this…in May, substantial completion in July of ’28, full final project in October of ’28, so a good two years,” Heiland said.
This story comes from our partners at the Northwest Missourian, the campus newspaper of Northwest Missouri State University.