As a state senator, I am probably the biggest proponent for local control at the Capitol. I have spent two decades managing local governments in Georgia and I love the ability of a community to decide the right choice for citizens. The analogy I like to use for local control is an artist painting with a pencil-sized brush to show fine details. Unfortunately, when our state legislature has to address a problem, it’s like we’re painting with a nine-inch roller — the details get lost, but you get the message.
I am sent to the Capitol to represent the people and make the right decisions to improve life in Georgia. I am proud to work with Gov. Nathan Deal to keep Georgia’s status as the best state in the nation to do business. Unfortunately, something has crept into about 10 percent of Georgia’s local governments that is hurting business. Some folks call it a “rain tax” — and I want to fix it.
A constituent who has farmed his land since the mid-1950s came to me complaining of a fee he was being charged by his local government for stormwater runoff. I researched the local situation and worked to address it, to no avail. I then reached out to the Association County Commissioners of Georgia and the Georgia Municipal Association. I looked at what was happening statewide and found most charges are based on the amount of impervious surface on a given piece of property. While several local governments provided credits for various reasons, all local governments are running this as a utility fee.
Most local governments say they are charging these fees as a result of requirements in the federal Clean Water Act. The range of fees are quite varied. One fact that stood out was the almost universal position that people who don’t have any impervious surfaces on their property — things like roofs and driveways that produce water runoff during rains — don’t pay a fee.
However, even if there is no impervious surface on a piece of property, at some point stormwater will still flow off of that property. Return now to the farmer’s situation. He has a 10-acre lake that not only provides stormwater retention for his property and numerous nearby properties. He is being charged a fee when, in fact, he provides regional stormwater relief. He is a huge asset to stormwater management and, in my opinion, nobody who is an asset to the system should be charged a fee.
Senate Bill 116, which I’m sponsoring, would prevent a stormwater fee from being charged on water-neutral properties. I authored the bill with help from local elected officials, environmental and design engineers and others to address one simple situation: Georgia does not want to be anti-business. When you have acres of property with no impervious surface such as farm or timberland, then you don’t have a lot of jobs per acre or investment in the property tax digest in your community. If that same property is developed to a manufacturing plant or retail business, the numbers of jobs grow, the property tax base grows, those working pay income taxes, and if they are retailing, they collect sales tax. All of these factors add to our economy and serve as an economic engine for our communities and our state.
We have requirements in Georgia’s local governments dealing with stormwater runoff. Good engineers can design a system to mitigate the stormwater runoff caused by a development’s impervious surface so that it does not adversely impact the stormwater system any more than before the development was put in place. I don’t want to see this relatively new fee adversely affect business growth in Georgia.
I’m asking for my partners in local government to work with me to analyze their stormwater utility rates and to charge a fee more proportional to usage. Millions of dollars are spent by various enterprises to mitigate stormwater on-site, and those property owners should not have to pay multiple times when they have solved the problem.
Senate Bill 116 is a pro-business bill and I hope to continue to work with my partners in local governments to paint the fine details into their utility rate.
