Stormwater Fee Issue Has Equitable Ending
Hard work and dedication underline new spirit within
City Hall that leads to savings for many residents.

By Tripp Liles

Across the nation, many municipalities are wrestling with budgetary issues and shortfalls. Here in Georgia, beginning this month, Georgia Power is increasing its rates and until recently the City of Roswell was facing a utility increase of its own. As previously reported, a new stormwater utility increase was going into effect for all Roswell citizens and businesses this year. It was mandated by federal guidelines that required Roswell to bring its aging stormwater drainage infrastructure up to code. Before recent efforts made by employees at City Hall, most residents would have seen an increase of $4 to $5 dollars on their monthly utility statement.

According to City Council Member Becky Wynn, who serves as the Council Liaison to the City’s Public Works/Environmental Department, there were not many options to pay for such a large project.
“There are two ways we can pay for this. There is a palatable way or an equitable way. I think the fairest way is the equitable way where everybody pays their fair share.” Wynn stated.

She went on to clarify that the solution of how to see that most citizens will not have to shoulder this burden wasn’t found by the politicians, but by the dedicated employees at City Hall and in the Water Resources division.
Led by City Administrator Kay Love, a group was tasked with ensuring that taxpayer’s money is well spent.

“It is always difficult to balance needs and competing interests.  However, the elected officials have made sustainability a priority over the past few years and stormwater infrastructure is part of that.  With the economic downturn, it has been a challenge to implement the stormwater utility. There is never a good time to increase costs to our citizens. Staff began looking at ways we could offset the impact to property owners and the analysis that staff did resulted in a recommendation to reduce sanitation fees.” Love stated.

According to Keith Lee, Director of Strategic Planning and Budgeting, Love was the driving force.
“It started with Kay Love indicating that we needed to find a solution for funding this program.” Lee said.
Following this directive, there were conversations between Lee and Stu Moring (who is Director of Public Works Department), as well as others directly involved in stormwater management such as Alice Champagne, Roswell’s Water Resources Manager. It was discovered through these discussions that strong fiscal management of the solid waste program meant it was running in an extremely efficient manner. Due to this, there was a surplus in that program, which allows the city to reduce money spent on it and utilize the new stormwater fee in a manner that will effectively negate the cost to most residents.

“We have a good fund balance supporting the solid waste program. As such we are able to increase revenue for the stormwater program without much impact to the citizens. In fact some will see a reduction on their overall bills.” Lee stated.

According to figures discussed at the City Council Meeting of December 27th, 64% of homeowners will see little to no impact on their utility statement. The remaining homes that will see an increase in their bill fall into 2 categories. Homes with 4,951 to 10,000 sq. ft. of impervious area will see a fee increase of less than $2 or 9% and homes with over 10,000 sq. ft. of impervious area will see net fee increases ranging from 19% to 58%.
While the impact on homeowners is in most cases negligible, there is still non-residential property that must contribute. In the case of churches, the fee increase would range from $19 to $439 before credits are extended. Commercial properties fall into a much wider range of possibilities. According to a city review the impact on businesses would range from reduction of 21% up to a 400% increase. This wide disparity is determined by the overall impervious area the business occupies. All of these increases are before potential credits are issued for upgrading their respective stormwater infrastructure.

For a PDF breakdown on fees and credits click here.