This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on developing the financial information necessary for undertaking projects where income is earned from the delivery of certain utility services, whether the utility is publicly or privately owned. It demonstrates both how the largest possible project could be undertaken at the lowest possible cost and how a utility’s excess operating income could be used to improve the system. The book contains some of the most important information in the entire training series. It presents the government official audience with a basic rubric of how to optimize often-meager funds available for environmental projects. The book also presents the methodology of creating volumetric tariffs. There is also a discussion of how such tariffs can be regulated by local governments to assure users of the basic fairness of the tariff design.