GREEN COVE SPRINGS – The Board of County Commissioners set their Stormwater Maintenance Municipal Service Benefit Unit assessment at $60 each year. If it’s passed in September, taxpayers can expect an increase of $2 in their monthly property taxes.

Engineering and Public Works Director Dale Smith told the board last February his department needs at least roughly $16 million to reconcile with the county’s much-needed stormwater maintenance. Unable to afford such a cost with their general budget, the BCC began mulling over an MSBU to fund the projects. The BCC brought the county one step closer to the increase at its July 23 meeting.

“If this gets passed after the public hearings, then taxpayers will have to pay this [MSBU] of $60 a year,” BCC Chairman Mike Cella said. “This is parsed out over a year so it’s really $2 a month.”

When Smith presented the county’s stormwater maintenance problems in February, he also provided different funding options. The BCC could charge between $24-$72 a year for each parcel. Not wanting to overextend, the BCC opted for the $60 option, with promise to reduce the fee if collects too much money.

“We’ve got projects assigned to back that number [$60] up,” Commissioner Wayne Bolla said. “We don’t want to set it so low that we don’t actually do something with the money. That’s been our problem in the past with these things: when we do these things, we don’t do enough, and nobody notices it. This should be enough to really make a difference and if it’s too high, we can reduce it.

“I’m not too keen to go above it, but based on what I’ve been told, to raise it, we’ll have to go [through all of this] again. We’d have to initiate a raise if we wanted it so I’m sure this thing won’t run away from us, and that’s why I’m confident with $60.”

In 2018 there would have been about 87,800 parcels that would have paid the fee, Smith said. While the county expects the same number of parcels this year, Chief Assistant County Attorney Fran Moss said the county should expect roughly $50,000 worth of fees to be exempt for certain parcel owners like some veterans. The county must cover that $50,000 cost created by the exemptions.

The board approved the initial assessment resolution for the stormwater MSBU 4-1, with Rollins dissenting. The next step is the MSBU’s first public hearing, which will take place on Aug. 27, but that won’t occur before the county has properly advertised what it plans to do with the $60 fee.

The BCC made it clear it wants everything the MSBU would fund to be presented in a transparent way. If the fee is passed, the BCC wants to create a public list of all improvements and maintenance fixes, as well as a constantly-updated list of everything that’s been done.

“To me, this is transparency,” Commissioner Diane Hutchings said. “We’re telling them where we’re going to spend the money, why we need it and then we’re going to tell them where we use the money. Especially in today’s climate, we owe that to our taxpayers.”