A city fee increase is headed to Sacramento voters this month. Here’s what it would fund
All Sacramento property owners will this month receive ballots in the mail to consider a stormwater fee increase.
The City Council unanimously approved the ballot measure Tuesday
If voters approve, the city would increase the fee for most single-family homeowners by about $70 per year, from about $135 to $205 per year, based on the size of impervious surfaces.
The city last increased the fee in 1996, and city officials contend the money is needed to pay for repairs.
It’s a rare attempt to issue a ballot measure for a fee increase during the coronavirus pandemic. Sacramento voters last considered a tax increase in 2018, when voters approved the sales tax increase known as Measure U.
“Here again, another meeting paving the way for another hike in what it costs to live in the city,” Steve Maviglio, political consultant and Sacramento homeowner, said during the meeting. “Timing is everything. Let’s put the ice on this fee for now and move forward when the pandemic ends.”
Maviglio suggested the city wait to see if they can get federal money from the new infrastructure bill to pay for the upgrades, instead of increasing fees on property owners. A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency web page states “the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law delivers more than $50 billion to EPA to improve our nation’s drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure — the single largest investment in water that the federal government has ever made.”
Mayor Darrell Steinberg asked Utilities Director Bill Busath about that question. Busath said the only federal funds announced through that program so far have been for drinking water projects, not drainage.
Sacramento is unique in the country in that it is at a low elevation, is surrounded by levees, and relies on a “combined system,” meaning sewage and stormwater are collected and conveyed in the same system of pipes, Councilman Jeff Harris said.
“This council has to be bold enough to go ahead and put this on the ballot and let the voters decide,” Harris said. “Our constituents have wrestled with localized flooding for years. And because we have a combined system, sometimes that means sanitary sewer outflows, which are more than inconvenient, they’re downright unpleasant, especially if you have a basement that floods. It is our job as a municipality to keep our citizens’ homes and lives free of this localized flooding.”
During a record-breaking rain storm in October, people were using kayaks in flooded Elmhurst streets, Harris said. In a North Sacramento industrial area where sump pumps lost power, flooding was so severe that the fire department had to use rafts to rescue unhoused people in RVs.
The increase would bring in about $20 million in new revenue to the city to repair and improve the city’s 100-year-old stormwater system, according to a city web page. More specifically, it would be used to protect drinking water quality; keep chemicals, sewage and human waste out of rivers and creeks; prevent sewage and human waste from overflowing onto neighborhood streets; replace deteriorating pumps that prevent flooding; and repair aging water pipelines and infrastructure, the web page said.
Unlike yard waste fee increases, which the council enacted last month, stormwater fee increases require a ballot measure, according to state law.
“It will be up to the property owners, the voters,” Steinberg said.
If the voters approve the measure, the council would adopt the new rate in April. The fee was last increased in 1996.
This story was originally published February 2, 2022 at 11:18 AM.
