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DR9302-CS 910630Who'll The Rain? Euless' new drainage utility ystem won't stop the storms, but it will help prevent the resulting floods. Ci0, Mamq~r For years, from one end of Texas to the other, cities have shared the common problem of flooding. The damages include not only milHons of dollars of property loss, but also the occasional loss of life. Each year, city o~cials must face angry citizens whose homes have just been devastated and tell them that the city would really like to solve their problem, but just does not have the money to do it. This sad but true statement plagues many Texas cities, since funds fi)r drainage Improvements have always been hard to acquire. Because most people believe flood- lng only affects a small area of thei? commu, nlty, they are reluctant to vote for a drainage bond issue which would raise their own taxes. For this reason and others, the 1989 Tex:cs Legislature, at tile urging of the Texas Munici. pal League, adopted legislation which allows dries to establish municipal drainage ulility systems to better manage stormwater prob- lems. Uoder the statute, the dr~ittage utility system will work lite seine way a city water utility or sewer utility does, by allowing a charge to property owners for drainage. The revenue can be-used to maintain drainage ways, to pay fordrainale capital prolecu, and to pay for environmental regnlallons regard- In8 drainage and slOtm water management. Not long after the bill was passed, the dry of Euless began studying the concept of a drain. age utility system as an alternative to funding drainage needs throughout the city. Euless was like many other Texas cities - it had neighborhoods In which homes flooded each year, as well as drainage ways sorely In need of maintenance, it had ali of the needs, but did not have the funding to address them; drainage issues had been defeated in the most recent city bond election. For these and other reasons, Euless began seriously looking at this new law as a viable option to address the community's needs. The first step tm)k lite form of briefing memos and work sessions ~ith the dry council. Mter the council's initial positive response, the staff began to scrutinize the prospects of a d. rainage utility and determined that pro- Jeered revenues would warrant the expense and energy of implementing the system. Af- ler considering several options, we decided to implement the project In-house ~.cause our staffwould have greater control over Ihe implementation tittle and cost of lite project, as well as over the method of Ils develtq~- Illent. A key ingredient to tile success of this project was lite commltmeol on lite part of the city council, which unanimously supported the proces~ throughout. Mayor flarold O. Samuels explained one reuon for the council's accep. 'Nghen we were presented with the plan, our first concern was the Implementation costs,' he said. 'Management pre~ented the city council with the option of doing most of the work in.house, and the council readily ac- cepted the idea.' An in-house_task force was appointed to design the drainage utility system. The task force Included employees from planning, en- 81neefln& geographic tnformaUon, finance and data processing, as well as representa- tives from the city attorney's office. The assistant city manager acted as' project man. al:er, and minimal outside professional ser- vices were used (as needed) for those por- tions'of the pro~ect whidt could not be completed in-house. We spent a good deal of time tn brainstorm- lng ~esslons, trying to design a method of charginlg the~dratnage fees that would meet .legal requirements, while also being reason- able enough to have a chance of being ac- cepted by Euless' residential and commercial citizens. The method we chose consists of three components: tile base rale ( a dollar amouqt to be charged monthly, hased tm Impervious acreaRe); tile slnnnwater runoff coefficient fi~r lite particular I:md use; aod the numlx:r of acres in the property. Continued on page 33 Texel Town & City ,, 16 ~e b~e mae ~r Impious a~e w. set It $13.64, ~ ~ount ~t seemed likely to generate I useful ~ount of revenue while not overburdening pro~ owne~. ~e runoff c~den~ we used were pulled dlre~ly from the ci~'s ~ent su~ivlsion code; they ~e the st~d~d flgu~s ~ Euless ~d m~y other Tex~ ~tles use for pl~ning pu~oses. ~e fl~res refle~ f~rly ac~rately how much stom~ w~ter Is ~bsor~d ~d how much runs off from e~ch ty~ of I~d use. For ex.pie, restdentl~ pm~ h~ · 50 ~r- cent runoff c~ffi~ent, which me~s ~at 50 ~rcent of the r~n hlling on this ~ ofl~d u~ will mn off ~d ~0 ~rcem ~11 either ~ ~sor~d or ev~rite. Runoff c~fflden~ for commerdg l~d use ~sume that the m~jofl~ of ~e pro~ ~11 ~ covered by either r~ftop or plying. ~us, it Is esUmated ~at 95 ~rcent ofthe r~nf~l that hie com- merd~ pro~ ~11 mn off. By Inco~r~ting the st~d~rd runoff ~- denu Into our fee fo~ula, we we~ ~ble to rumply ~th ~e s~te drainage utill~ c~e ~quirement ~t the b~is for the fee be directly related ~o dr~n~ge (~ op~sed to proper~ v~lue) ~d that i~ be 'nondl~flml- n~lo~, equitable, ~d re.on,hie.' For mosl ~pes oiled use, we used the ~u~ numar of ~es in each lot ~o flgu~ the monthly dr~n~ge ch~e for that pro~. ~e exception w~ testdenUal pro~. ~- ~use of tl~e hrge numar of single f~lly homes in Euless, we derided in use ~ ~ver- ~ge of residential lot sizes, Instead of me.ur- lng each pl~e of land. To determine II~e drainage charge ~or e~ch pn~y, we I~k lhe b~e rale, limes the mnoffc~[ficlenl for the applicable I~d use, mulltplled by die numar ef ~cres in each lot (except, o[cour~, In the c~ of residential pro.ny, ~hen the ~vemge ~eage w~ used). B~ on thc~ figure, the monthly drainage charge for eve~ ~sidentt~ pm~ e~y In Eu!ess is $130. ~e day's geographic informa~on ~stem e~ t~blished that Ihere we~ 8,976 residential lob with ~ ~verage lot size of 9,592 squ~re feet. This equates ~o .22 ~es ~r lot (9,592 ~u~re feet ~r ~ver~ge lot, divided by 43,560 squ~re feet per ~re). Since lhe runoff c~f- ~ent for ~ resldenli~ lot is ~0 ~reent, this me~s thai ~ ~crc of I O0 ~rcent Im~lous ~re~ would ~ il~e equlv~lem of 9,091 IoU: $13.64 l~r Im~lous ~cre (9.~)! times S Although these technical aspects took up much of the staffs time, other related Issues also were being studied. The city attorney's office prepared a briefing letter on the legal steps needed to Implement the system, and a prolect calendar was set. The process con- sisted of two separate public heatings, the passage of two ordinances and the publica- tion of six required legal notices to advertise the public hearings and proposed ordinances, all of which required a minimum ofgO days to complete. . While the dry coundl and dry sdmlnistrators fulfilled the legal requirements and set the rate structure, some team members modified the dty's exlsli ng utility billing system, which runs on an IBM System 36, to handle the additional drainage charge. Our dat~ process- ing managerworked closely with the consult- ant software company to develop a compat- ible and functional drainage utility billing. This process was complicated by the state's requirement that the drainage charge be billed directly to the property owner. (This is different from other utility billings, because a drainage billing would have to be sent to the landlord rather than the renter.) To achieve this, we once again turned to the city's geo- graphic information system, which we used earlier to estimate the average residential lot size. This time, the s/stem compared the day's current utility billings to the tax praisal district's billings. If the property was deemed to be occupied by an owner, the d~nage charge was added to the day's monthly biffing for water/wastewater ser- vices. If the property was deemed to be occupied by.a renter, the billing was trans- ferred to an ,accounts receivable program that would send an invoice for payment of the drainage charge when the billing reached a designated amount or age. The first drainage bills were mailed as part of the city's uUIlty hill in January 199 !. Bills that were transferred to the accounts receivable program were mailed in April. . The drainage charge Is being accepted with little complaint, largely because the task force did ti good Job of communicating the city's plan to citizens through public heatings, news releases and newspaper articles, special mail- Ings and the ~fayor's Newsletter. Gonllnue~l on pago :37 More profit_ You'll profit through more service, more specialization and more support when yom; retirement programs are ad'ministered by a non-profit organiza- tion like the ICMA Retirement Corporation. from a non-profit. RC's non-profit status means RC is responsive to the needs of l)ublic employers rather than a group of shareholders. RC was founded by public employees'to meet the special retirement needs of public employees. Today, RC administers nearly two billion dollars for ifidividual participants and state and local governments. For more information about the ICMA Retirement Corporation plans, contact our Client Services staff, toll-free at (800) 669-7400. : Retirement is our middle name. K:MA · 777 North Capitol Sired, NE · W~hlnRIon, DC · ~2~2~ RU'IR~ME%'f 3'oli-lr,~ (a~) ~74~ .1202) ~24~ (.4)Rlq IR.~l'lllq 33 · June 1~91 Now that revenues :u'e coming in, the dr/will be~n addressing drainage needs. ^ drainage dep~'tment is being created, providing a small sutff'with equipment to maintain draJn- age ways :u'ound the community. W'e also plan to sell revenue bonds, to be paid back from proceeds of the drainage utility, which will fund major capital pmiects within the dty. Although a 'mini-drainage plan' was developed durin8 the system's Implementa- tion, later we wtll consider commissioning the city's first drainage master pl~n. The drainage utility system should prove to be a major asset in Euless. It is an equitable method of funding drainage needs, more so than raising taxes, and the system will track revenues and expenses according to the law, providing better accountability to citizens. Because every land use is part of the drainage problem, aJI community members will equita- bly pay their fair share for the remedy, Including schools, churches and govemment (yes, the City of Euless, too). To help commu- air/members understand the importance of their partldpatlon, we explained that even the dtizen sitting on top of the hill, who never has and never will flood, Is contdbutinR to the problem downstre:trn, where someone Is flood- lng. The cost to Implement the udllty was less than $$0,000 most of which paid for com. purer programming changes. Furthermore, we estimate that the dry saved at least $100,000 by doing the project in-house and that we gained several hundred thousand dollars of revenue which would have been lost if the Implementation had taken longer or if we had chosen Instead to increase taxes to fund the needed drainage projects. We expect to bill around $400,000 annually through the drainage utility system. While this won't be enough to fund all of the projects we r~eed, it does provide a sound financial base to build on. We were imp~'essed to watch task force mem- bers from so many different departments and disciplines work together to give Euless citi- zens the resources to solve many current and future drainage problems. A letter to Euless citizens and business owners says it all: 'Euless' draJnage utility system will benellt ail residents and business owners In the city by financing, correcting and preventing drain- age problemstn a fair and equitable manner. Even taxpayers whose properties do not suffer Iloodln8 will benefit because tax dol- lars will not have to be diverted from other worthwhile programs to finance drainage projects. By working together in this man- ner, city officials, residents and business owners can work toward creating a flood- free city." dp , I I I Issues, topics, and legislation from the 1991 Legislati~.e Session will bo discussed at two scheduled Texas Foundation for the' Improvement of Local Government "Public Policy Briefings" on the following topics: Ju~ 12.1991 "Tax & Finance" -- ns wcll as an update on the Special Session. August 23. 1991 "Legislative Potpourri" covering a variety of areas such as Economic Development, Utilities, Community D6velopment, Personnel and General Government. Sessions will be held at'he Guest Quarters Hotel. conveniently located in downtown Austin. For more information on these "Public Policy Briefings," contact TML's Progr~'m Development Department at (5 ! 2)478-6601. ?. 37 · June