Storm-Water Program Running Out Of Money Raising $10 Fee To $50 May Be The Only Way To Staunch Problem, Panel Says

People screamed four years ago when the county started charging homeowners $10 a year to solve runoff problems. The day the bills arrived in the mail, one courthouse secretary did nothing but answer telephone calls from angry taxpayers.

Now an advisory group is recommending that the fee be four or five times higher.

The county has to raise more money to deal with flooding, say members of the county’s Water Quality Advisory Committee. For proof, they point to the flooded basements on the North Side and Glenrose Prairie, flood debris in trees along Chester Creek and erosion on Browne’s Mountain.

“We’ve lost control of everything,” committee member John Shagen said.

Shagen, who protested the $10 fee in 1993, thinks people will willingly pay $40 to $50 if they understand the need.

“Some things take money, which the county doesn’t have,” he said.

County commissioners get the final say on any fee increase. The big jump the advisory committee suggests likely won’t get that approval, Commissioner Kate McCaslin said.

“I have to say I gasped when I heard that (proposal),” said McCaslin, who acknowledged the county will have to raise more money somehow.

County officials warned when the fee started that it would eventually have to increase.

The county collects $1.3 million a year from the owners of 48,000 parcels in urban, unincorporated areas. City dwellers and country folks don’t pay.

The typical residential bill is $10. Commercial bills are based on a number of factors, like the amount of ground covered by asphalt, buildings and other development. The bill for some businesses tops $1,000.

The money goes toward managing the storm-water program, educating people about runoff, enforcing regulations and writing watershed plans, county utilities Director Bruce Rawls said.

About $300,000 a year goes toward maintaining county dry wells, culverts and swales, Rawls said. A relatively small amount - perhaps $200,000 a year - goes toward new projects to control storm water, he said.

In the next five to six years, the county will need an additional $15 million for storm-water work like underground pipes to carry water through areas where natural drainages have been lost to development, Rawls said. Looking ahead 15 years, the bill could top $60 million, he said.

Rawls said raising the storm-water utility fee is just one possible solution, although it’s the one the advisory board plans to suggest to county commissioners. The committee will discuss the matter again during a meeting Thursday morning.

“We’re just in the embryonic stage on this issue,” Rawls said. “There is no proposal on the table yet.”

Other options include charging people only for work in their own neighborhood. Glenrose landowners would pay a lot because they’ve got big problems; those on the Valley floor, where flooding usually isn’t a problem, would pay less.

Commissioners also could charge developers a fee as they turn vacant land into housing tracts and shopping centers, Rawls said. Just don’t call them “impact fees,” which are hugely unpopular with developers; Rawls prefers the term “system development charges.”

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Meeting The Water Quality Advisory Committee will discuss the storm-water utility tax and other issues at 7 a.m. Thursday in the county’s public works building, 1026 W. Broadway.