Perfect political storm sinks flood control impact fee plan

A plan to implement a special fee on all DuPage County property owners for flood control is not going to happen this year.

Some believe it never will.

Besides the initial backlash of the proposal from municipalities and nonprofits, the initiative lost steam late last year when the county's budget shortfall took center stage. The subsequent sales tax hike that solved the budget problem also left many board members gun-shy about imposing any new fees.

The plan would have called for a fee to be calculated on the amount of impermeable surfaces, such as blacktop driveways or parking lots, that each property owner has.

But the proposal hasn't appeared on the county board's storm water committee agenda this year.

"We got such negative feedback on it," said Jim Zay, the committee's chairman. "The committee's kind of left it there."

And now, DuPage State's Attorney Joseph Birkett's office is opining that the county board doesn't have the authority to create the new fee structure because it lacks home-rule authority.

"If the county board wanted to impose a storm water utility fee they'd have to go to the General Assembly and get them to change the law," Birkett said. "It's a fee or tax, and they're not authorized by law currently."

The lack of support, increased sales tax and Birkett's opinion combine to provide a fairly sizable hurdle, supporters lament.

"I wouldn't expect to see it again for a year at the earliest," said Tony Charlton, the county's director of storm water management.

County board Chairman Robert Schillerstrom stopped short of saying the idea is dead.

"That's something we need to study a lot more and a lot more consideration needs to be made before we make a decision on that," he said. "But I'm not going to Springfield to seek a new tax."

Zay contends something needs to change soon because federal clean water mandates require a dedicated funding source for flood control. The county could face fines otherwise. Currently, property taxes pay for storm water management.

"Storm water is always going to be a need," he said.

The initial concern was the burden the proposed fee would place on schools, churches and other property tax-exempt entities with large paved parking lots and buildings that create copious amounts of runoff.

The fee would have cost such land owners between $2,500 and $6,500 a year, county officials said.

Zay said the impact fee is more equitable because "you pay for what you use."

Opponents of the proposal said schools and government bodies would simply increase property tax rates to cover the addition of that fee.

Charlton suggested the county could lower its property tax rate by the amount covered by the new impact fee.

The storm water committee has been pursuing the impact fee for several months under a legal opinion from an outside counsel, Zay said. He was surprised Birkett's office hadn't disagreed with the outside firm's assessment until recently.

"During this whole process you think someone would have stepped up and said, 'You better look at this again,' " he said.

In fact, the state's attorney's opinion on the storm water impact fee hasn't even been officially released, but Birkett said state law regarding adding fees and increasing taxes was "pretty straightforward" and no one should have been surprised by the outcome.

"The county has only the authority granted to it by the state and this is not a home- rule county," he said.

Charlton said the county is in no immediate jeopardy of being fined and the fact that discussions continue to determine a dedicated flood control funding source represents a "good-faith effort." But the county has a little less than five years to come into compliance, he said.