Council May Raise City Stormwater Fee
By Tonya Root, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C.
May 9–CONWAY — City residents likely will notice an increase in their stormwater fee on their June bills if a proposed fee adjustment is approved at the next City Council meeting.
On Monday during its regular meeting, City Council approved the first reading of an ordinance to increase the stormwater fee from $3 to $5.25 for most residential homes. A declining scale would be used for commercial properties with large areas of impervious surfaces. A declining scale is one that charges a lower rate as the square footage of impervious surface increases.
The council also approved the first reading of the proposed 2006-07 budget with the reallocation of an excess of $492,000 from the general fund.
The $27.6 million budget will be up for second and final approval at the May 22 meeting.
The budget, which is balanced without a millage increase, includes revenue increases of $3.6 million in property taxes, $3.6 million in licenses and permit fees, and $7.6 million in public utilities, City Administrator Bill Graham said.
The budget also includes 14 new full-time employees, two part-time employees and salary increases for employees that include a 2 percent cost of living increase and 2.5 percent merit increase.
The increase in the stormwater fee, which funds the stormwater utility, will enable the public works department to hire a five-person crew to be dedicated to three capital improvement projects annually related to stormwater, City Planner Karen Godin said. They also will maintain the city’s stormwater drainage system.
Hamp Shuping, chairman of the city’s water quality and drainage commission, and Susan Libes, a marine chemist and professor at Coastal Carolina University, applauded the council for having a stormwater utility, but asked that the council address water-quality issues in addition to stormwater flooding issues.
“The stormwater fee is ultimately not there for moving water or dealing with water quantity but for dealing with water quality,” said Shuping, who noted Crabtree Canal and Kingston Lake were the most polluted and trashy water bodies on the Waccamaw River.
Libes told council that the commission is developing a list of projects and will return within a few months to present that list to them. She also suggested the council dedicate a staff person to the stormwater program to do things such as review capital projects to ensure they won’t make water quality worse.
————
What’s next
The second and final reading of the proposed stormwater-fee increase will be during the May 22 meeting of Conway City Council.
For information on the proposed increase, call the Planning Department at 488-9888.
Contact TONYA ROOT at 248-2149 or troot@thesunnews.com [mailto:troot@thesunnews.com].
—–
Copyright (c) 2006, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.