The City of Moose Jaw is considering a drainage utility to develop finances for the replacement of aging leaky storm sewers.
According to administration reports to city council budget meetings, the drainage utility would remove $7 million from capital reserves over five years, freeing that money for other capital works projects.
And the drainage utility would take $344,000 a year out of the annual operating budget.
Poof! Just like that the city will find new money to fund needed storm sewer replacements.
Whoa! Where will that annual $1.8 million to run this drainage utility come from?
(I deduce) out of taxpayer pockets, of course.
(My thoughts on the matter)…a drainage utility is another way of making it look like council is doing a better job of keeping property taxes down.
The utility would be funded by charging a monthly fee or a base tax, or likely both.
Whichever way you cut it, the taxpayer will pay with added burden, just from a different pocket than the annual property tax bill.
The general tax rate of property and other city revenues used to finance garbage collection, a twice a year garbage cleanup from back lanes, and a free, then modest landfill fee.
The spring and fall garbage pickup has long been gone to keep taxes down. Dumping fees at the landfill have increased substantially.
The garbage utility gave taxpayers added fees as well as fees for recycling. Recycling fees were small but keep increasing.
We even have a utility to pay for our poop removal.
Creating utilities for functions funded by property taxes merely adds taxation and fees to owners.
But the city may not have much choice in the matter. The money is needed to replace aging storm sewers.
If the city doesn’t find funding for storm sewer replacement future generations will have to pay for the work.
Replacement of city water lines is a prime example of what can happen.
The city council of the day was warned in 1990-91 that the city faced a huge expenditure in the 2000s to replace the old water lines, many with over 100 years service.
Council actually heeded that warning. A small replacement program was started. Three years later council killed it, showing more interest in re-election than in looking after city interests.
The program was killed to keep property tax increases to around zero. And they did it with one two per cent increase in five years.
If that water line replacement program had continued the city would be almost done with water line replacement and at a much lower cost than today.
The city faces a severe shortfall of funds to keep the program going and is years behind schedule.
Council has a tough choice to make: institute a fee-based drainage utility, or let future generations pay at much higher rates.
One fear: Can we foresee the day when a cash-strapped city approves a snow removal utility?
Ron Walter can be reached at [email protected]
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
