Barrie’s stormwater climate action fund is being slam-dunked.
City councillors stopped its flow Wednesday night, taking it out of their 2023 operating budget.
Coun. Gary Harvey, chairman of the city’s finance and responsible governance committee, said there’s an extra $3.7 million in staff salaries and benefits in the fund’s plan that are unaccounted for and they will be a burden on homeowners.
“I just really feared this is not the time to be doing this.” he said of the fund. “We’re in the midst of record-high inflation, people are struggling.”
The plan was to have the owners of single-family Barrie homes pay $10.75 a month — or $129 annually — in stormwater user fees starting this spring. The average homeowner has been contributing $174 annually toward stormwater management through property taxes.
For 2023, the proposed rate was to be billed for nine months beginning April 1, and would total $96.75 for the year. The first three months would be funded by the federal gas tax rebate, totalling $2.6 million.
But a majority of councillors said it wouldn’t work that way.
“Look at the numbers,” said Coun. Bryn Hamilton. “Every year we have collected $10.5 million from our property taxes to pay for stormwater and the reality is it’s just not enough. I think … it’s more like $30 million or so that we should be collecting for this.
“I think telling residents we are saving them money is a bit of a misleading statement and ... they’re not going to be seeing any savings in their annual property taxes even though we’ve removed that $10.5 million because we’re replacing it with something else," she added.
Mayor Alex Nuttall didn’t support the fund, either, which originated with the last council..
“There’s a reason that a previous council didn’t say yes at the time, immediately put it into the budget and left it for someone else,” he said. “I will let you deduce whatever that reason is, but there’s a reason.
“There’s reason it was left on the plate of the 11 people around the table here, because there’s nothing fun about an eight per cent tax increase,” Nuttall said. “There’s nothing fun about it. There’s nothing fun about looking at our infrastructure plan ahead of us and going ‘how on earth are we going to pay for that’.”
Coun. Clare Riepma spoke against removing the fund from the 2023 operating budget.
“I think one of the things we have to remember is whether it’s on the tax base or whether it’s a service charge like we’re proposing here, the money still gets spent and the water still runs downhill and needs to be dealt with,” he said. “When you get the bill every month or every two months, it’s very clear what you’re paying for and how much it’s costing you.
“Stormwater management is definitely one of the services that residents expect, need and expect to pay for," Riepma added. “It increases equity because residential homes … have a lot more green area and a lot less paved area than our shopping centres and some of our industrial sites, so what this does is it charges the land uses that generate the storm drainage requirements and shifts that burden away from the residential home, and I think that’s very fair.
"And it’s also something that people understand. What it does is it tends to transfer the cost and the burden to the land uses that actually causes the burden.”
But Deputy Mayor Robert Thomson said government is not equitable.
“We take from all (for) transit, rec centres, they’re user-based, but they’re supported by all residents whether you go to them or you don’t, so they’re all part of our tax bill,” he said. “It’s just a fee that’s equitably distributed throughout the city. It’s not an equitable user-rate.
The work that needs to be done will get done. It may get done at a slower rate," Thomson added.
Nuttall said the stormwater fee is just taxation.
“I say it’s a tax increase because it’s a tax on rain and it is. And there’s a tax on rain needed because we have to deal with that rain, but that’s what it is,” he said. “And I fear this. I’m looking at … members of the public are going to be praying for drought, and members of staff are going to be praying for more rain to be able to get these things covered. It doesn’t sit well with me.
“How do we deal with stormwater, how do we fund it? … Because it’s not being funded based on what we’re doing here this evening, and how do we come up with a plan that makes sense. We have to have to have to get serious about infrastructure in Barrie, especially in these tough economic times,” Nuttall said.
Riepma said it doesn’t matter what the stormwater fees are called.
“It may be a tax on rain, but it’s going to rain and we have to deal with it as a city,” he said. “I would love to go to the feds and I would love to go to the province and get a bag of money, but I know for a fact that that’s not happening, either.”
Stormwater is rain, melted snow or water that runs off roofs, driveways and roads rather than soaking into the ground. It either flows into rivers and waterways or is channeled into storm sewers.
The stormwater climate action fund was designed to help improve the city’s resiliency against climate change impacts, mitigate flooding and protect Lake Simcoe and groundwater sources.
Starting in the spring of 2023, the costs of Barrie’s stormwater program would have shifted from property taxes to what had been called a more equitable user fee.
Barrie water customers would have seen, this spring, a stormwater fee on their water/wastewater bills. This was not to be a new tax since stormwater management costs are currently paid from property taxes; effective in the spring of 2023, these costs would have been paid for on the water/wastewater bill and based on the type of property owned.
The stormwater user fee is calculated by the amount of impervious area on a given property — a hard surface such as concrete, asphalt or rooftops that does not absorb water. Water runs off impervious surfaces, collects pollutants and flows into local creeks and Lake Simcoe. In undeveloped areas, stormwater soaks into the ground and slowly flows into aquifers and waterways. In developed areas, impervious surfaces prevent stormwater from soaking into the ground.
Barrie councillors continue budget talks today at 5 p.m.
