Marysville storm water rates will likely be increasing, though there will be some time before that happens.
At a recent city finance committee meeting, members questioned the number of storm water projects.
“We have a lot of projects out there for storm water and we have a fair amount of need for these projects,” said council and committee member Alan Seymour. “Are we going to be able to afford them all with our current storm water structure?”
City Finance Director Brad Lutz said the city said that it cannot handle the projects “as quickly as people would like to see these projects completed.”
City Manager Terry Emery said the city has certain priorities it will address.
Seymour said there have been several emergency situations where the city has needed to react quickly.
“Those aren’t cheap projects. The price tag goes up pretty quick,” Seymour said.
Lutz said the city does not budget “so closely that if there is an emergency project that comes up, we have the funds for that as well.”
Seymour questioned how the city could increase revenue for the projects.
“We can’t raise funds more. There is only so much we can do,” Seymour said.
Lutz said the city’s utility rate working group is meeting and discussing “various things around utilities and one of them, of course is the storm water fee.”
“I believe the general consensus is… the expectation is that obviously we are going to go into 2022 without an increase and kind of let that settle for a year but with every intent of having a rate increase for 2023,” Lutz said. “Now, is it going to be a $0.50 increase? Is it going to be a $0.25 increase? I don’t know. That part is yet to be determined but the chances of us going another year without an increase, given the need to complete these projects and the cost of these projects, not doing an increase going into 2023 is probably not realistic.”
Lutz said the city could also take out a loan to be repaid using storm water fees.
“We could consider that if there were some larger projects that we wanted to get done soon and take advantage of doing those projects sooner rather than later,” Lutz said.
He said costs will be better now than in the future.
He said some of these projects have a significant cost that affect few customers.
“This is just all part of what you as council have to consider,” Lutz said.
Council and committee member Henk Berbee said he would like the city to continue looking at “impact fees for new developments.”
He said new homes reduce the land where flood water can go and the new developments impact the way water flows for the existing homes.
Council and committee member Donald Boerger said he is in favor of the impact fees as well, not just for storm water but also for traffic. He said development impacts not just the land immediately connected to it, but all over the city.
“If a development wants to come in here, they should have to pay and we should be putting that money aside for (the) future,” Boerger said, noting the city is limited in how they can charge fees and what can be done with the money.
“That is being done now,” Emery said. “It may not have been done years ago as well, but today it is.”
He cited the Woodside Development on Columbus Avenue. He said the developer is paying for a portion of the intersection improvements at Industrial Parkway and Coleman’s Crossing.
“In all for these funds, we do collect a significant amount of fees that frankly go toward paying for these projects,” Lutz said.
Seymour said it has gotten better and now is being done “fairly well.”
He said the city used to get “beat up quite a bit” for the high fees.
“Now the fees aren’t really as high as a lot of other communities,” Boerger said.
Lutz said that will all be looked at but the funds are being collected and used for projects.
He said the general fund also receives money that are not called impact fees, but would be in other areas.