Proposed stormwater ordinance includes $5-a-month fee for most residential customers

As expected, the city has officially set Nov. 15 as the date for the city council’s public hearing and the second reading of an ordinance that would establish a stormwater management department to be funded, for the most part, by a $5 a month fee imposed on single family residential customers and a more complex assessment for commercial customers who will wind up bearing most of the operational costs.

These proposed fees come as no surprise. They are exactly the ones discussed when the city was deliberating establishing this utility during its discussions for the FY 2016-17 budget, which goes into effect Saturday.

The new department appears to border on being an enterprise fund, a term used when a department must pay for all its operating costs strictly from the fees it collects. For example, all the costs for the typical municipal water utility, including bond repayments, is usually paid for from the water rates it charges to its various customers. According to the wording of Kyle’s proposed ordinance creating the stormwater utility, "A separate fund shall be created … for the purpose of identifying and controlling all revenues and expenses attributable to the drainage utility." Those words, especially that word "all," would suggest the new department would be an enterprise fund. However, that same Section 50-504 of the proposed ordinance goes on to say the fund’s deposits will include "All drainage charges collected by the city and other such moneys as may be available to the city for the purpose of drainage." That, to me, means, if necessary, the stormwater utility may be able to dip into General Fund or other utility funds if necessary. However, the reverse is not true — the ordinance specifically prohibits money deposited into the stormwater fund to be used for anything other than storm drainage or flood risk mitigation.

Be that as it may, the principle source of funds for the utility will come from a complex formula in which commercial customers will not only be charged for the amount of impervious cover on their property but also the percentage of their property that is impervious. The other source will be a $5 a monthly fee that will be included as part of the customers’ monthly utility bill.

The commercial fee will be $.0021 times the square footage of impervious cover times an amount to be determined when the percentage of impervious cover on a property is multiplied by 1.5425 and then .5064 is added to that. So using round figures, let’s say a commercial property has 100,000 square feet of impervious cover on their property and that 100,000 square feet accounts for 80 percent of the total property. That customer’s monthly fee would be, if I understand the ordinance correctly, $365.48, roughly 73 times the amount paid by the owner of a single family residence.

The ordinance says the monthly fee will go into effect "with the adoption of this ordinance," which will undoubtedly take place Nov. 15. However, the last section of the proposed ordinance lists its "effective date" as "immediately following the publication of this ordinance in the local newspaper." So it’s really difficult to determine exactly when these fees will begin appearing on utility bills, but one council member told me during budget deliberations that will probably commence early next year.