LEAD 6543 Module 2 Governance Structure and Decision Authority Analysis Example

Who Decides About the Pipes? Governance and Decision Authority for Lead Line Replacement in an Ohio City

Student Name

American College of Education

LEAD6543: Policy and Governance

Module 2 Assignment

Instructor Name

July 21, 2031

Introduction

My first paper for this course defined the problem facing Riverford, a composite Ohio city: about 28,000 homes, concentrated in lower-income neighborhoods, receive water through lead service lines, and a 2024 federal rule requires their replacement within about a decade. Before comparing policy options, it is necessary to know who has authority to decide what. Lead line replacement is governed by several levels of government and depends on private property owners and community trust. This paper maps the governance structure, states what each actor controls, identifies gaps and overlaps and proposes an arrangement for governing the program.

A Polycentric System

Ostrom (2010) described polycentric governance as a system with many centers of decision making that are formally independent but take one another into account through cooperation, competition and conflict resolution, and argued that such systems can manage complex problems better than a single central authority. Lead line replacement in Riverford is governed in this way. No single body decides everything; federal, state and city authorities each control part of the program, and property owners hold a veto in practice over work on their land. The question is whether the parts can be made to work together.

Federal Authority

Under the federal drinking water statute, the national environmental agency writes the standards every public water system must meet, including the 2024 requirements for inventories, replacement and testing (Environmental Protection Agency, 2024). It does not manage local programs or decide how cities pay for replacement, and it acts mainly through states that have primary enforcement authority. Federal infrastructure funding flows to states through revolving loan funds with federal conditions attached. Federal authority thus defines the obligation and supplies part of the money but leaves design to state and local actors.

State Authority

Ohio's environmental agency holds primary enforcement responsibility for drinking water in the state, which means it oversees Riverford's compliance, reviews its inventory and replacement plans and can take enforcement action. Together with a state financing body, it administers the drinking water revolving loan fund, setting criteria for which projects receive loans and how much principal is forgiven for disadvantaged communities. State rules therefore affect both the pace the city must achieve and the money available, and the state's scoring criteria influence which neighborhoods are replaced first.

City Authority

Within the city, authority is divided. The council adopts ordinances, approves the budget and sets water rates. The mayor's administration, through the department of public utilities, runs the water system, plans and procures construction and applies for state loans. Ohio's constitution grants municipalities home rule authority to exercise powers of local self-government (Ohio Constitution, 1912), which the city's law department advises would likely allow an ordinance requiring property owners to permit replacement of private-side lines, subject to notice and due process. Whether to adopt such an ordinance is the council's decision.

Property Owners and Residents

Property owners control access to the private side of each line. Without consent or an ordinance, crews cannot replace the private segment, and partial replacement is discouraged because it can raise lead levels. Many affected homes are rentals, so tenants who bear the health risk cannot authorize the work, while some landlords cannot be reached or decline. Residents also hold informal power: in neighborhoods with low trust in city government, rooted in past experiences, consent rates for free replacement have been lower than expected in other cities, which can slow programs regardless of formal authority.

Community Organizations

Neighborhood associations, tenant groups, health advocates and faith communities hold no formal authority but can influence outcomes by building trust, reaching residents door to door and pressing council for equity. In Riverford, a coalition of health and environmental groups has called for free full replacement prioritized by need. Their participation could raise consent rates and legitimacy; their exclusion could produce opposition. The governance arrangement must decide what role they will have.

Gaps and Overlaps

Mapping the system reveals three gaps. First, no body is responsible for coordinating federal requirements, state funding criteria and city priorities into a single plan with targets by neighborhood. Second, no mechanism reaches tenants and absentee landlords systematically, so access depends on individual outreach. Third, accountability for equity is unassigned; the federal rule sets a deadline, but no actor is charged with ensuring that the most exposed neighborhoods are served early. There is also an overlap: the council and administration both claim authority over prioritization, which has produced competing plans.

Collaborative Governance

Ansell and Gash (2008) reviewed cases of collaborative governance, in which public agencies engage nonstate stakeholders in formal, consensus-oriented decision making, and found that success depended on starting conditions such as power imbalances and prehistory of conflict, facilitative leadership, institutional design with clear ground rules and a collaborative process of face-to-face dialogue, trust building and commitment. Emerson et al. (2012) extended this into a framework in which principled engagement, shared motivation and capacity for joint action drive collaborative outcomes. These insights suggest a collaborative structure could address the gaps, provided it has clear authority and attention to power differences.

What the Gaps Imply

Taken together, the gaps point to the conditions a fast and fair program would need. A clear legal basis for private-side work would remove the access barrier that consent alone cannot overcome. Public funding for private sides would remove cost as a reason for owners to refuse. Sustained outreach through trusted community groups would reach tenants and wary homeowners. And a single plan with neighborhood targets would let the public see whether the most exposed areas are served first. The proposed arrangement is designed around these four conditions.

Proposed Arrangement

The paper proposes three changes. First, the council should adopt an ordinance establishing the replacement program, assigning the department of public utilities responsibility for a single plan with neighborhood targets and requiring annual reports. Second, it should create a lead line advisory board including residents of affected neighborhoods, tenant and landlord representatives, health advocates and utility staff, with authority to review prioritization and outreach and to report publicly on equity. Third, the administration should sign a memorandum with the state agency to align loan applications with the city's prioritization, so state scoring and city equity goals reinforce one another.

Limits of Collaboration

Collaborative bodies can stall when stakeholders disagree fundamentally or when one party dominates. The advisory board would have review and reporting authority, not a veto, so that decisions remain with elected officials who are accountable to voters. Its success would depend on facilitative leadership and on giving residents real information and influence, not token seats. These limits shape how the board's charter should be written.

Conclusion

Lead line replacement in Riverford sits within a polycentric system: the federal agency defines the obligation, the state enforces it and controls loan funds, the council and administration divide city authority under home rule and property owners control access to private lines. Mapping the system reveals gaps in coordination, tenant access and equity accountability and an overlap in prioritization authority. A program ordinance, an advisory board with real but limited authority and alignment with the state's loan criteria offer a governance arrangement suited to the problem. The next paper will compare policy options against explicit criteria.

References

Ansell, C., & Gash, A. (2008). Collaborative governance in theory and practice. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 18(4), 543-571. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mum032

Emerson, K., Nabatchi, T., & Balogh, S. (2012). An integrative framework for collaborative governance. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 22(1), 1-29. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mur011

Environmental Protection Agency. (2024). National primary drinking water regulations for lead and copper: Improvements (LCRI). Federal Register, 89, 86418-86716.

Ohio Constitution, art. XVIII, § 3 (1912).

Ostrom, E. (2010). Beyond markets and states: Polycentric governance of complex economic systems. American Economic Review, 100(3), 641-672. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.100.3.641