Westminster City Leaders Frustrated with County Decision to Not Collect Stormwater Management Fee

Mayor Kevin Utz said he and other municipal leaders were surprised when the board of Carroll County Commissioners decided it would not collect a fee for stormwater management projects, since municipalities have state mandated projects that were to be funded with the fees. 

Carroll County's Board of Commissioners recently decided to set aside $20 million for a state mandated stormwater management program (also known as the "Rain Tax") instead of imposing a tax on citizens. 

Westminster City Administrator Marge Wolf said in Monday night's Common Council meeting that two years ago discussions began at the local level to determine how Carroll's municipalities would meet state mandated watershed projects that must be in place by 2017. 

"We said we couldn't [complete the projects] because we didn't have the funding to do it," Wolf said. "The state said 'ok, we'll give you a funding source' and they passed the stormwater management fee." 

According to Wolf, a Water Resources Coordinating Committee comprised of municipal leaders and county staff was created several years ago in order to come up with solutions to the state mandated requirements.   

Wolf offered an example -- the city of Westminster has been working to implement an enriched nutrient replacement project at its water treatment plant that would meet particular state standards in 2017 for the entire county.

"Our understanding was that we would have a pot of money, there would be one county-wide fee based on however they want to do it, but it would would go to fund these particular projects," Wolf said. "We were rather surprised when we saw this whole thing come down and not one word was mentioned about municipalities."

Wolf said that the initial response from county leadership when asked what municipalities were supposed to do was "I guess you're on your own." Wolf said that the city of Westminster's share of those projects will cost approximately $871,000 a year for next five years.

Wolf said that to pay for the projects, the city would have to pass its own stormwater management fee or take the money out of the general fund. She added that this is a problem each of the county's municipalities are facing.

Westminster Mayor Kevin Utz said he immediately called county leadership when he heard of the commissioner's decision to not implement a fee or tax to pay for the mandated projects. The commissioners have agreed to revisit their decision, Utz said.

"The commissioners were all set to embark on something that would have resulted in a fiasco for this whole county in how we’re going to manage these stormwater projects," Common Council President Robert Wack said. "Hopefully they now are going to refocus their attention on the larger picture and come up with a more sensible process."

Wack said that it is possible to work with the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) to negotiate how these projects get done. 

"All of this is negotiable with the proper approach, bringing the right data to the table and a willingness to solve problems -- there are ways through this that don’t cause unbearable burdens for the city or our citizens," Wack said. "When you talk to people at MDE they will concede this is a work in progress. When approached correctly and in a manner that’s open to fostering a discussion, they’re open to different ways to look at it, innovative solutions."