The City of Boerne was presented with the Municipal Excellence Award for Public Works at the annual gathering of the Texas Municipal League in early October 2023.
The City was recognized for the Boerne Water Dashboard – a tool that combines all publicly available water information and displays it online to inform the public with near real-time local and regional water-related data.
“This award is representative of the hard work of many people at the City, Boerne Utilities, and our strategic community partners,” City Manager Ben Thatcher said. “The Boerne Water Dashboard will serve as a model for other communities seeking to promote sustainability and water conservation.”
The dashboard was created to support water management decisions by individuals, communities, and utilities to promote better stewardship of water resources and greater resilience during droughts or water supply challenges.
It ties into a broader effort from the Internet of Water Coalition, which partners with local, state, and federal governments to build a foundational water data infrastructure across the country.
The City of Boerne worked with the Cibolo Center for Conservation, UT-Austin's Bureau of Economic Geology, the Mitchell Foundation, and Duke University to create the dashboard. It is the first city-level tool of its kind in the country.
“It is great to work with our community partners at the City of Boerne,” Vice President of Conservation at CCC Ben Eldridge said. “They understand how valuable and limited our water resources are, and with the Boerne Water Dashboard they’re helping everyone in our community become better stewards of water.”
The Boerne Water Dashboard won the Public Works category, which addresses a variety of projects and efforts, such as environmental management, planning and land use, transportation, utilities, parks and recreation, and energy resource management.
The 2023 TML Municipal Excellence Awards recognize and encourage the achievements of Texas cities in meeting the challenge of municipal government. Innovative problem solving, excellence in management, increasing citizen participation, and reaching higher service levels are all daily occurrences in Texas cities, and they deserve recognition.
This awards program seeks out the best of these programs to honor. It is through the recognition of the best of the best that all Texas cities share and learn from these achievements.
