Implementation of the City’s stormwater management program (SMP) requires the expenditure of significant amounts of public money. The Stormwater Utility Fee (SUF) is collected annually with property taxes and is correlated to the amount of impervious surface on each residential and nonresidential property. As a result of the first 5 years of the program (2011 to 2015), the City collected $2.5 million in Stormwater Utility Fees and was able to complete $10 million in stormwater improvements by leveraging funds from other sources.
All residential and nonresidential properties benefit from the SMP. The City determined that the reestablishment of the Stormwater Utility Fee as an appropriate method for funding certain portions of the costs of implementing the SMP and therefore the City Council reauthorized the SUF in August 2019. The current SUF is being collected through 2024 at which time it will be reevaluated by the City Council to determine if it should continue. The SUF also allows the City to leverage funding from Johnson County’s stormwater asset management program.