State Sen. Frank Ginn (R-Danielsville) wants to bring storm-water fees in line with actually storm runoff as he begins work on a joint study committee on the issue. Ginn co-chairs the group with State Rep. Lynn Smith (R-Newnan). It will hold its first meeting today in Athens.
Storm-water fees are imposed by local governments, usually paid with property taxes. The fees are designed to fund storm-water management projects and are treated as utility fees.
Ginn, however, argues that utility fees are based on usage, but storm-water fees are based on other factors. Generally, a government measures the amount of hard surfaces – pavement or roofs – on a property, and assigns the fees based on that.
“It wasn’t right what they were doing,” he said of how the fees are calculated. He pointed to one of his constituents with a farm of a little more than 100 acres. The farmer does not create significant runoff and actually collects runoff from more than 300 other acres in his farm pond. Still, the farmer was billed for runoff fees.
Ginn’s argument is that if a property owner mitigates that, then the storm-water fees should also be mitigated. If the runoff is reduced to zero, then the fees should follow, he said. “If you mitigate all of that, then you should not have a fee,” he said.
When Ginn pushed legislation to do that, it quickly died when city and county government leaders opposed it. Now, his committee wants to work with those leaders to find a way to make the fees represent the property owners’ use the utility.
City and county officials, along with state environmental officers and engineers, will make presentations at today’s meeting. The committee is scheduled to produce its final report and propose legislations by Dec. 31.
