Assessment of wastewater utilities and priority determination of budget allocation using performance indicators in Korean

A budget of US $ 40.8 billion was allocated for wastewater utilities in Korea for the year 2004, but no definite standard for determining the appropriate budget allotted to wastewater utilities in Korea has been established. Thus, an effective method of determining the conditions of wastewater utilities and the allotment of an appropriate budget has been developed in this study. To this end, 36 indicators of the condition of Korean wastewater utilities were chosen, and then divided into four categories, namely: facilities, maintenance, management efficiency and environmental effects. The wastewater utilities of 48 Korean cities were allocated scores for each category based on their pertinent conditions. Through a cluster analysis, these cities were then subdivided into eight groups based on their individual scores for each category. From the cluster analysis, V and IV groups were found to be very good in all categories, I and II groups were average, III and VII groups required a bigger budget in the facilities category, IV group required a bigger budget in the maintenance category, and VIII group needed a bigger budget for both the facilities and maintenance categories. After examining the scores of all the groups in the different categories, it was determined that the facilities and maintenance categories were of the highest priority for the budget allocation.