Cloverdale Storm Water Board looks to enact new utility rate

Thursday, April 10, 2014

CLOVERDALE -- The Cloverdale Storm Water Board met Tuesday evening to proceed with discussion in regard to enacting a storm water utility rate to resident's monthly bills.

The board, which was originally established in hopes of obtaining an upcoming grant of $500,000 from the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs, had previously met on March 31 to discuss where the match for the grant would come from as well as how to sustain the board itself.

Following that meeting, it authorized both the Town Attorney Allan Yackey and financial advisor Steve Brock to proceed with a utility rate study to make a recommendation on what the storm water utility rate would be in hopes of creating a budget for the board to make ongoing improvements to the town.

Brock came before the board Tuesday to present his findings, which he broke up into several different options for user fees and budgets.

"The town is applying for an IOCRA grant to partially fund a storm water project. The project includes over 3,000 feet of new storm water mains along with new catch basins and manholes," Brock explained. "The project includes refurbishment of existing storm water mains and the construction of new mains in areas that currently lack storm water mains. The project areas are on, in or around Lafayette Street."

Each budget presented by Brock showed a different approach for the board to maintain current storm water construction projects as well as how to create funding for new storm water construction.

"In Indiana a municipality can administer a storm water plan or program through its municipal sewage works or it can establish a department of storm water management, as this town has, which is governed by a three member board of directors," Brock noted.

The storm water board has the option to issue special taxing district bonds or to enact user fees to operate the storm water utility.

Brock went on to explain that these tax assessments and user fees are payable by all properties within the corporate boundaries of the municipality.

All budgets and user fees that were presented were based on the 2010 census, which showed the population of Cloverdale being 2,172 with a total of 870 residential properties.

After hearing a variety of options such as residents being charged based on assessed value of the property, a fixed charge based on property characteristics to be collected by the county and a fixed charged to be collected on monthly utility bills, the board chose to go with a fixed charged to be collected monthly on utility bills.

"I know the board doesn't want a large fee and I've talked with you before about a $1 fee, but a $3 fee would give you enough money to pay the debt service on the match if you had to pay that back or if you didn't get the grant, it would give you $31,000 a year to make storm water improvements in town," Brock said. "It seems like a moderate fee to start with and it would actually give more money to work with to make improvements to the town."

However, after a brief discussion, the board chose to go with a $1 base rate fee to be billed on monthly utility bills, as the fee was deemed necessary by the board to help pay for the repair, replacement, planning, improvement, operation, regulation and maintenance of the existing and future storm water system for Cloverdale.

"Our water rates and our sewer rates are very high in this town and we're putting more money on the people. There are a lot of fixed income people in this community. We're a poor to moderate community," board member Dennis Padgett said. "I just want to start out slow and if we can raise rates down the road if they have to be raised, in my opinion, we can raise them. I know there's been suggestions of $5 being put onto this every month, for me personally, I don't want to do it."

The new base rate, which was approved by the Storm Water Board went on to also gain approval from the Cloverdale Town Council during its meeting following the Storm Water Board meeting on Tuesday evening.

Residential properties located within the sewage system service area will soon have to pay $1 per month with non-residential properties located within the sewage system having to pay $2 per month.

The Cloverdale Storm Water Board and the Cloverdale Town Council will be meeting on Tuesday, April 22 at 6:30 p.m. for a public hearing with a special meeting to follow. During the meeting, the town council will introduce rates on a second reading as well as suspend rules and adopt the new storm water rates.

Following the Storm Water Board meeting, a public hearing was also held on the storm water improvements construction project.

Grant Administrator Kristy Jerrell of Jerrell Consulting and Grant Administration Services began the public hearing by giving a general overview of the grant application process and a timeline, with the final application being submitted on April 25 and the notice of grant award being July 11.

The total project cost is $625,000 and will be focusing on a total of five blocks on Lafayette Street into Doe Creek.

The town will be responsible for a $125,000 match, which will be taken from several funds including $17,965 from the Food and Beverage Fund, $17,965 from the town's CCI Fund, $17,965 from the General Fund, $17,965 from the EDIT Fund, $17,965 from the Water Fund and $17,965 from the Wastewater Fund.

In order to be awarded the grant, the town of Cloverdale must have a minimum score of 420 out of 700 points, which is includes a national objective score based on a recently completed income survey, community distress factors, local match contribution, project design factors and sustainability.

According to Jerrell's assessment Cloverdale is likely to be awarded 438.46 points. A total of eight proposals were submitted with one dropping out. Out of the seven projects, four will be funded.

"I think we have a fighting chance," Jerrell said. "We're going to give it our all. It's a great opportunity for the community to get almost a half million dollars and to do these needed improvements."

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  • Just what we need in this town is higher utility bills. It won't be long that the town is going to break all of its residents, and business are going to look elsewhere

    -- Posted by becker on Fri, Apr 11, 2014, at 7:41 PM
  • Here we go again........

    -- Posted by captain crunch on Fri, Apr 11, 2014, at 10:03 PM
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