How did the City pay for the cost of stormwater management before Now?
The City has traditionally paid for the costs of managing stormwater runoff by allocation a portion of property taxes to the SWMP. Why not continue to fund the City SWMP with property taxes? The cost of managing stormwater runoff has significantly increased in the past few years due to issues outlined above. As a result, more resources are needed to continue to meet the needs and priorities of the City’s SWMP. In order to fund the future SWMP, the City will either have to raise taxes and reduce other services to “free up” existing tax revenues, or establish a stormwater user fee system. Typically, home owners provide a majority of the property tax revenues. However a majority of impervious surface area in a community is typically associated with non-residential properties. As such, an increase in property taxes will likely not be an equitable way to apportion the SWMP cost to the customer base. The SW Utility apportions the SWMP costs in an equitable manner to the parcels that place th
