WIIC. the working example
Built from the Indiana and South Carolina working prototypes

Indiana and South Carolina already have regulators, engineers, trainers, utilities, and funding agencies. WIIC gives them one shared record to work from.

Each of those groups already does its own job well. WIIC's role is narrower and more useful. It gives them one common, trusted record. Their separate efforts add up to something bigger than compliance.

WIIC succeeds when three things move together. Those three are technical credibility, institutional coordination, and economic development. Most institutions only ever see one of them. This walkthrough puts all three in one frame, on purpose.

The record

Built once, used everywhere

A utility keeps its asset condition, workforce readiness, and finances in one governed file. That replaces a separate report for every audience.

The review

Consistent, attributable, auditable

Every review, sign-off, and determination carries a timestamp and a named authority behind it.

The signal

Trust that reaches beyond compliance

The same record that satisfies a regulator also tells a funder or economic development partner whether a utility is ready for capital.

Three pathways follow: a utility, a regulator, and a funder or stakeholder. Each sees the same record, from a different chair.
Three roles, one record

How this looks from each seat at the table

Pick a role. The utilities and numbers below come from the prototypes' own demonstration data, not production records.

A utility keeps building the same record every cycle, in place of filing once and moving on. Below is the prototype's own example utility. It's shown the way its board would see it.

From Indiana's Board Member Portal
Indianapolis Water Co.
Governing-body view · current reporting cycle
In progress · under review
Assets inventoried
96% complete · 18 high-priority assets flagged
Workforce certified
88% of operators · financial attestation pending
Capital plan linkage
70% of assets linked to the capital plan
The board sees its own status and training obligations. The evidence file and the reviewer's queue stay with the utility manager and the regulator, one seat over.

The prototype builds its regulator view around one idea: a regulator's job is to answer five questions for every utility, every cycle.

From Indiana's Authority Model
1
Who had authority?Every action in the record ties to a named role.
2
What was done?The evidence itself: inspections, training completions, financial attestations.
3
Who reviewed and approved it?A named reviewer signs every determination.
4
Who is accountable for the outcome?The utility manager for what was submitted, the governing body for the fiduciary result.
5
Is there a complete trail?Yes, automatically, for every action.
42
Utilities in one statewide queue
1
Consistent record format for all of them
Instead of forty-two different conversations, a regulator works from one queue. That queue has the same shape for every utility. The first reporting cycle mostly establishes a baseline. A utility behind on training gets that gap recorded as a starting point. Requirements tighten in the cycle after that, once utilities have had time to build capacity.

South Carolina's prototype makes this explicit. WIIC can matter as a trusted readiness signal long before it becomes a regulator. Funders and economic development partners can use that signal on their own terms.

From South Carolina's Funding Readiness Registry
42
Utilities assessed
18
Certified
11
Funding-ready today
9
Flagged for assistance first
Tier
What it means
What happens next
Gold
Ready for capital now
Prioritize for project funding
Silver
Ready with light support
Fund priority repairs alongside targeted assistance
Bronze
Needs assistance first
Enroll in workforce and technical assistance before funding
Development
Just getting started
Begin building the baseline record
The certification gives a funder's judgment a governed record to stand on. That record shows who submitted evidence, who verified it, and what's still missing. Judgment moves faster from there.
Why this matters beyond compliance

Water readiness is already deciding where growth lands

Two real examples show capital projects meeting water uncertainty well before they meet a lack of money.

Capital increasingly follows infrastructure certainty. WIIC's governed record turns utility readiness into something lenders, site selectors, and economic development organizations can evaluate consistently.
$13B+ investment, $560M prerequisite
Eli Lilly's LEAP campus, one of the largest private investments in Indiana history, needed a $560 million water-supply program in place before construction could begin.
$2.6B project, stopped in one day
A data center project of that size was halted the same day it had been approved 5-0, once the local water district raised capacity concerns.
$6.4B
Lost yearly nationwide to water that never reaches a paying customer
30–50%
Of utility operators eligible to retire within a decade
Certification enables the growth. It lets growth happen faster, with less risk. That benefits the utility, the funder, and the community counting on the jobs. A trusted, governed readiness signal shortens the distance between "we'd like to invest here" and "we can."
In plain terms

What the law actually asks utilities to do, and what WIIC provides for each part

What the law requires
What WIIC provides
Report on the state of the utility's asset management every few years
A governed record that's already being kept well ahead of any deadline
Certify the utility can technically, financially, and legally run its own system
Structured evidence and sign-offs stand behind that certification
Have the utility's governing board or council complete required training
Training completion tracked at the individual board-member level, rolled up to a quorum-level status
Show improvement over time, under the state's rules for the second cycle
A baseline captured early, so "improvement" is measured against a utility's own real starting point
All four requirements come from Indiana's HEA 1459 (2025). That law builds on an earlier one, SEA 272 (2022), which first tied asset management to state funding.
The first cycle is forgiving on purpose: it mostly checks whether a utility showed up and started building its record. The bar rises in the cycle after that. WIIC's job is simple. Make sure the record utilities build in year one is still useful when that bar rises.
Mapped to HEA 1459's real timeline

The legal clock doesn't wait. Neither does the build.

Indiana's law runs on its own schedule regardless of WIIC. The build has to run alongside it, not after it. South Carolina and future states will follow their own pace. Their participation is voluntary. Indiana's calendar is still the clearest illustration of why timing matters.

HEA 1459'S OWN CLOCK
2026
First reports come dueEvery covered utility files. Missing that deadline is the only deficiency in this first cycle.
2026–2029
Baseline cycleUtilities establish their record. Training and workforce gaps get documented as a starting point, not penalized yet.
2030–2033
Requirements tightenSystem maps, asset inventories, and demonstrated improvement become required. The record from cycle one is what utilities lean on here.
HOW TORBU AND NEWFIRE BUILD ALONGSIDE IT
Today
Core architecture in placeRole-based review and governed records are already built into the platform's design.
Through 2029
Extend to full evidence and statewide oversightAsset evidence, regulator dashboards, and the funding-readiness signal get built during the baseline cycle, ahead of when utilities need them.
2030 onward
Support the tightened requirements, expand beyond IndianaThe same build carries Indiana into its second cycle and supports other states moving at their own, voluntary pace.
2026 is already on the calendar. The build needs to be ahead of it, not catching up to it.
A utility's record for the 2030 requirements is easiest to build during the 2026-2029 baseline cycle, while the bar is still low. Starting the platform build now means that record is already in place when requirements tighten. Starting later means building it under deadline pressure instead.
Being direct about where things really stand

What's live, what's being built, and what's still a vision

Everything on the previous screens is real content from the two working prototypes. That is different from saying it's all live in production today.

Live today
Being built
Still a vision
LIVE TODAY
Indiana's lawEnacted and in effect: a real statute already in force.
BEING BUILT
The underlying TORBU platformArchitecture and code for role-based review and governed records are largely in place. Infrastructure to run it in production is offline, pending reactivation.
BEING BUILT
This walkthrough and the two prototypes it's drawn fromReal, working demonstrations, ahead of connection to a utility's live production data.
BEING BUILT
Statewide regulator dashboardsScoped and in progress, extending the platform's existing structure.
VISION
South Carolina's Funding Readiness RegistryA well-designed concept, still waiting on its first signed funder or regulator in South Carolina.
VISION
WIIC as the trusted signal for economic growth, nationallyThe long-term thesis. It depends on Indiana and South Carolina both proving out, and on other states following.
The best time to raise any questions or concerns is before the next planning conversation, not after.