Funding Stormwater Programs

Many communities have funded stormwater management from property taxes paid into their general funds. However, there is great competition for municipal general fund dollars from other worthy municipal programs. Stormwater management improvements typically have a low priority, unless the municipality is reacting to a recent major storm or regulatory action. The total cost of stormwater management is not readily apparent when these costs are sprinkled among general fund departmental budgets. As stormwater management costs increase, general fund budgets are often not increased to meet those needs. In addition, tax-exempt properties do not support any of the cost, even though it can be shown that many of them, such as governmental properties, schools, colleges, and universities are major contributors of stormwater runoff. Finally, property taxes are based on assessed property value. The cost of stormwater service to individual properties bears no relationship to the assessed value of the property. Therefore, this method of recovering stormwater management costs might not be equitable.