It's Your Money

 The Stormwater Assessment ordinance adopted by the Martin County Commission on July 21 st remains the main topic of inquiries coming into your Taxpayers’ Association. In last week’s IYM we discussed the basics of the new assessment and our opposition to implementation of this new “tax”. We have now had the opportunity to analyze the “Stormwater Utility Rate Study” (SURS) performed by the consultant firm of Stormwater Solutions, Inc. for the County Engineering Department. This is a very professional (and probably very expensive) study that forms the basic justification for this assessment. Accordingly, we have an even better understanding of the County’s problem and their rationale for adopting this new fee based tax. However, we remain opposed to their solution, as currently defined, for a variety of reasons.

Our main reason for opposing this particular fee is that at the most basic level this is just a new way to collect more “tax revenue” from County residents. It will generate approximately $8 million more than would be collected through Ad Valorem property taxes, even though there is already an 8+% increase in the millage proposed for FY 2010. Yes, as the County maintains, your property tax will not be assessed for this service as in the past. However, your tax bill will most likely still increase and the new assessment will be collected as a separate, additional item on top of that amount when you receive your official tax notice.

The SURS has meticulously documented the County’s need for new stormwater revenue and the type of projects that will be constructed or maintained with these funds. We have some sympathy for the needs, but little for the decisions that approved other much less critical expenditures while allowing (according to the study) necessary stormwater infrastructure and maintenance to become delinquent. As we have pointed out many times, personnel costs are anywhere from 85-95+% of the operating budgets of all of the County Departments we have reviewed. Apparently the County Commission and Administration they control have given themselves and their employees’ large increases in salaries and benefits while not providing adequate funds for a basic responsibility like stormwater management.

We do question one portion of the study that contends, “construction costs have increased…”as a reason for needing more funding. All the figures we have seen indicate that construction costs, at least in the private sector, have gone down, not up, since 2007. Maybe more stormwater maintenance and construction should be outsourced to the private sector.

Another problem we have is how to deal with exemptions to this assessment. The study’s rationale for who pays goes to great lengths to justify what type facility pays what and why. The basic calculation for “impervious surface” is fairly straight forward, but who receives an exemption and why are certainly important questions open to interpretation. According to the SURS: “Institutional parcels were exempted due to…State Statute …County policy decisions regarding the public benefit… and … certain situations where the County would be assessing County owned properties. Institutional Parcel(s) include, but are not limited to, schools, hospitals, recreation areas, churches, … government owned land, railroads and public roads. Parcels classified as Institutional Parcels will have an ESU assigned … however, …assessments for those parcels will be paid by the County from other legally available revenues.” Our questions: except for State Statute and government owned property, who determines who pays and who doesn’t? And, if exempt properties have fees calculated and assessed but the tax will be paid by the County, where are these funds coming from? Does the County actually paying an assessment for religious organizations become a legal issue? Also, residents of Jupiter Island, the City of Stuart, and the towns of Ocean Breeze, and Sewall’s Point that previously contributed will now receive no assessment at all. How is that rationalized?

It is certainly possible that the projects and objectives included in the SURS are well worth the expenditure of funds and that an assessment based on the area of impervious surface a property contains may be a fair way to acquire the required revenues. However, the bottom line is that no matter how you package and justify it, this is a substantial tax increase. It will hit some residents much harder than others, and not necessarily based on ability to pay. We believe it will transfer much of the stormwater cost to businesses and industrial properties at a time when the County has just appropriated significant funds for efforts to attract new business and jobs to the area.

Bottom line: After a thorough review our recommendation remains the same: Tell your Commissioners NOT to approve this assessment that is scheduled for final adoption at their September 15 th Commission meeting. There was little public debate when it was initially approved in July based on the SURS only completed only week earlier. If this is truly what is needed and the way to achieve it, publicly make the case. This particular fee and the precedence it sets for moving other County Services to an assessment are far too important to be adopted this quickly.