Albany officials address complaints about stormwater fees

ALBANY — City of Albany officials have gone back into education mode to stem the storm that’s been brewing over the newly implemented stormwater fees that first appeared on utility customers’ bills in April.

Several business owners have complained about what they say are excessive fees and the city’s method of determining those fees for the program start-up. Some have gone so far as to say they aren’t currently planning to pay the fees until the city justifies them.

“When you have 27,000-28,000 bills going out with new data, that’s a lot to put into a database,” City Engineering Director Bruce Maples said. “There are going to be growing pains. That’s why we want our customers to know that we’re here, and we’ll deal with any issues they have. They just need to call us.”

Businessman Chad Warbington, who also serves on the city’s Water, Gas & Light Commission board, is one such citizen who called when his first stormwater bill came due. And while Warbington said that all of his issues were addressed and most solved to his satisfaction, he shouldn’t have had to make the call in the first place.

“Mr. (Robert) Griffin (with Engineering and Civil Design) was very helpful when I called,” Warbington, owner of Shutters Plus Inc., said. “But there’s a level of frustration because it took me calling to get this issue straightened out. If I hadn’t called, this would have just been another line item on my overall utility bill. And I would have been paying it.

“One thing that I think illustrates the concern many people have is that a consulting firm used aerial photographs to determine the stormwater charges on everyone’s property. I had a gravel driveway that they determined was concrete, so they added that to my impervious property total. I would have thought that would be worth a site visit to confirm.”

Warbington said that while he and other business owners had had their bills cut by calling discrepancies to the city’s attention, there are likely many more who haven’t looked closely at their bills.

“Take me and multiply that by however many businesses there are in Albany,” he said. “That’s how big this could be.”

But city officials said they’ve already made inroads into solving customers’ issues by addressing all concerns, no matter how minor.

“We’ve had some complaints, yes, but we’ve had some positive calls, too,” Maples said. “We’ve had people who asked questions, but once they got the answers, they were satisfied. They told us that what we were doing is fair.”

Added Public Works Director Phil Roberson, “Once people see the methodology for our calculations, most agree that it’s reasonable and fair.”

The federal Environmental Protection Agency advised municipalities almost a decade ago that stormwater mitigation was coming, and two years ago the agency, through the state-run Environmental Protection Division, came up with a time frame for compliance. Roberson, Maples and others within the city hierarchy started working with consultants to devise a plan for city compliance.

“We weren’t mandated to create a stormwater utility, but not having a source to control stormwater discharge was not an option,” Roberson said. “We worked with the City Commission and our consultant (Savannah-based Ecological Planning Group) to come up with a plan. We put that plan into effect starting in April.”

The city braintrust initially sought $5 million in stormwater billing to operate the newly formed utility, but Roberson said city officials were concerned about “sticker shock.”

“Our initial plan would not have been economically feasible for our businesses,” the Public Works director said. “We decided to compromise. We took the lowest fee in the state — which was in Valdosta, I think — and made ours lower. Our initial billing will amount to $2 million in ERU (equivalent residential units, currently at $2.50) value.

“We hope to gradually increase that amount to make the utility self-sustaining, but we did not want to create an economic burden on our businesses.”

Had the city gone with the initial plan, ERUs would have been more than $5 and businesses’ stormwater fees would have more than doubled.

Interim WG&L General Manager Tom Berry said the alternative to the stormwater fee, which is shared equally by all residential and business owners — including nonprofits that generally pay no taxes — would not have been favorably received.

“Just think if we’d dumped this onto our tax base,” Berry said. “All these fees would have been on the backs of the ad valorem taxpayer.”

All funding generated from the stormwater fees, Roberson said, will be — by law — used on stormwater upgrades. That’s another plus for city taxpayers.

“Look, if we did the things we need to do through our general fund, we’d bust the city’s budget very quickly,” Maples said. “We could spend $50 million on the Holloway Basin and $80 million at Eighth Avenue.”

One local businessman contacted for this article, who asked that his name not be used, said he sees no reason to pay the stormwater fees.

“I’ve gotten bills that are stormwater fees only,” he said. “What’s my incentive to pay these fees? Until someone answers that question, I don’t intend to send the city any of my money.”

Griffin said he’s received a few such calls.

“Right now, since the stormwater fees are being added to utility bills, they’re being handled just like any other utility,” Berry said. “There will be delinquency fees added, and, as a last resort, all utility service will be discontinued. So, yes, if one of our excellent customers pays his other utilities and not the stormwater fee, his or her utility service could be discontinued. I don’t expect to see that happen, though.”

Southwest Georgia Regional Airport Director Yvette Aehle told the Albany-Dougherty Aviation Commission recently that the airport pays higher stormwater fees than any other city entity. But she noted that initial conservation efforts had led to 30 percent credits that lessened the fees’ economic impact considerably.

“As more and more businesses understand that they can get up to a 50 percent credit on their fees, they’ll start paying more attention,” Roberson said. “Our credit manual is on the city’s website (albany.ga.us).”

Maples recounts the story of an 80-year-old homeowner who took a close look at the credit fee schedule and took advantage.

“She showed where she’d had her septic tank maintained, and she got a 10 percent credit,” the Engineering director said. “Of course, since residences count as only one ERU, that credit amounted to 25 cents. But that meant something to her.”

Asked what might happen if the city chose not to follow the EPD mandate, Roberson said the fallout could be disastrous.

“There would be fines,” he said. “But I don’t think that’s the worst thing that would happen. If the city continued to be non-compliant, the EPD could pull our discharge permits (that allow for release into the Flint River). That would do irreparable damage.”

Adds Berry, “We’re always competing for new industry, and I can honestly say its cheaper to do business in Albany than almost anywhere else in the state. But if these (discharge permits) were withdrawn, you could forget about trying to recruit any more business prospects. In fact, I don’t think we’d keep the businesses we have.”