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After sifting through reams of information since February, the Onalaska Stormwater Utility Feasibility Study Task Force came to the reluctant conclusion that creating a stormwater utility is the only equitable way to share the costs of implementing improvements mandated by state and federal governments.
The task force will recommend the city adopt a stormwater utility that takes some of the burden of paying for stormwater management from the residential sector and spreads it out so that commercial and nonprofit entities share more of the burden.
Currently stormwater management costs are funded through property taxes. Residential taxpayers account for 64 percent of current stormwater system funding, with commercial contributing 33 percent and tax-exempt entities, such as churches and schools, paying nothing.
Under a the committee’s recommendation, residential payers would be funding about 50 percent of future stormwater costs. Commercial entities would pay up 38 percent of costs and nonprofits would pay 11 percent of costs.
According to Larry Dalton, director of finance for the school district, the school district suffers the most. Dalton is the only member of the task force who felt he could not make a recommendation for or against the utility.
“The district is in no position to approve the formation of a stormwater utility,” Dalton explained in a letter to the task force. “Such a position would amount to taking some of the $500,000 district revenue that our taxpayers approved by a 3-to-1 margin and using it to ease the funding challenges of another governmental body. … Likewise, it would be inappropriate for the district to actively oppose formation of a utility. About 90 percent of district taxpayers are city taxpayers. Our constituencies are largely the same. Both the city and district are proxies for our citizens.”
What a citizen would pay the proposed utility is based on a complicated formula involving the calculations of what are called Equivalent Runoff Units, or ERUs, and a fee per ERU. Task force consultants estimated the average customer in Onalaska has 3,888 square feet of impervious area on a property. Each 3,888 square feet is one ERU. Impervious areas are rooftops, driveways, parking lots and sidewalks.
A typical city resident on a 1/8 acre lot or less has an estimated .6 ERUs. Estimates of other properties include Walmart with 193.3 ERUs, the YMCA North property has 50 ERUs, the city of Onalaska has 379.7 ERUs and the school district has 331.7 ERUs.
A rate is then applied to each ERU. The task force will be recommending a rate of $80 per ERU to be paid quarterly for the next five years. The higher rate was chosen to build up a reserve to pay for mandated improvements to infrastructure to protect the water quality.
A public informational open house is scheduled for July 1 to educate citizens and collect public input. The task force will make a final report to the Common Council on July 14. The Council might take more time to review it or might vote for or against it at that time.
AT A GLANCEWHAT: Public informational open house
WHEN: 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 1
WHERE: Onalaska Council Chambers
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