A potential tax increase in the city of Holmes Beach to the stormwater assessment is once again on the table.
City officials talked May 12 about ways to balance the municipality’s stormwater budget over the next 10 years, including potentially increasing or introducing new stormwater assessment fees.
The current assessment fee is $2.95 per 100 square feet of property, resulting in a $59 annual stormwater fee for a 2,000-square-foot property. It was established in 2019 and has not been increased since.
Last summer, city commissioners shot down a proposed assessment increase to $4.95 per 100 SF due to concerns that residents were financially recovering from the impacts of the 2024 hurricanes.
Commissioners Terry Schaefer and Dan Diggins supported the proposed increase, while Steve Oelfke, Jessica Patel and Carol Whitmore voted against it.
However, a year has passed and the problem persists.
Public works director Herb Raybourn told commissioners at their May 12 meeting that the current assessment is not enough to fund even a minimum stormwater improvement program over the next 10 years.
He presented four 10-year budgets for the stormwater improvement program.
Two of the budgets factored in no assessment increase, with one based on minimum stormwater improvements and the other based on sustaining the city’s current level of improvements.
According to the budgets, the current stormwater tax results in $862,000 in annual revenue for the municipality.
A minimum stormwater improvement program is expected to cost $700,000-$800,000 annually over the next decade.
While that is less than the annual stormwater revenue, it does not factor in $961,500 in projected carryover costs from the current fiscal year, 2025-26, or a projected $1,215,500 stormwater improvement budget for fiscal 2026-27.
When factoring in those costs, a minimum stormwater improvement program is projected to run a $452,200 deficit after 10 years.
It gets worse if the city wants to sustain its current level of stormwater improvements, which cost about $1,300,000 annually — about $500,000 more per year than the revenue gained from assessment fees.
After a decade, sustaining the current level of improvements without increasing fees would result in a $5,943,200 deficit for the stormwater program.
Raybourn also presented two budgets that factored in increases to the stormwater tax to balance the cost of sustaining the city’s current program.
According to his numbers, a one-time increase of $2.20 per 100 square feet of property — which would raise assessment fees to $5.15 per 100 square feet in fiscal 2026-27 — would result in a balanced stormwater budget after 10 years.
Another way to balance the budget would be to increase the assessment fee by $0.40 every year over the next 10 years, resulting in a tax of $6.95 per 100 SF by fiscal 2035-36.
Schaefer said the current fee is “woefully deficient” for funding the city’s stormwater improvements.
“I think this year we have to look at it rationally,” he said. “In my mind, we have to be thinking about an increase.”
Whitmore said the city should issue a referendum so residents could vote on the matter, instead of the commission making the decision.
Mayor Judy Titsworth recommended against a referendum since it would cost the city money to advertise it, as well as educate voters on the matter.
Diggins asked to explore something similar to the city of Anna Maria’s idea to assess a low fee
based on property size and a separate fee based on impervious coverage, so a property’s total tax would be more reflective of its impact on stormwater drainage.
“These businesses that are 100% impervious, they’re paying the same rate as somebody that has half that impervious surface. So it just seems like there’s a better way to do this,” Diggins said.
Raybourn said such a method is possible, but would require city staff to annually audit properties for impervious coverage, something that would take extensive time and effort.
“If the direction is yes, we want to go that way, we’re very supportive of it,” he said. “Just understand that we’re either going to have to hire a consultant to do that work, or we’re going to have to do the work ourselves, which would impact other things that we do.”
Titsworth added that the transition to assessing fees based on property size was already cumbersome and urged commissioners not to change that method.
“It’s a lot of work,” she said. “So this year, I highly recommend you stick with the same way we’ve been assessing it … and look at if you want to do it in increments, like the 40 cents, or do you just want to bite the bullet and do it now?”
There was no public comment.
Commissioners agreed to continue the discussion at a future meeting.
In other matters…
City commissioners also:
- Unanimously voted to approve a $166,665.34 change order for work on a project that involves building and retrofitting stormwater infrastructure along 56th Street and Holmes Boulevard;
- Unanimously voted to authorize Titsworth to execute an agreement with the Public Risk Management of Florida Health Trust to provide health insurance coverage for municipal employees;
- Unanimously voted on a resolution to appoint city treasurer Julie Marcotte as the city’s representative on the PRM Trust’s board of directors, with human resources director Maureen Gluff as an alternate;
- Unanimously voted to appoint Darcie Duncan to a two-year term on the city’s police pension board. Her new term will expire April 1, 2028.
The city commission will meet next at 2 p.m. Tuesday, May 26, at city hall, 5801 Marina Drive.
A livestream of the meeting can be viewed on the city’s website, cityofannamaria.com.
My how we have progressed, for over a century the island drained really well at low tide, now that we have all these plans and improvements it doesn’t drain well even at low tide, makes you wonder about the quality of the improvements doesn’t it.