After weeks of hearing complaints about flooding, the Volusia County Council Dec. 3 threw cold water on a proposal to raise stormwater assessments in the unincorporated areas.

“I’m feeling a sense of urgency,” County Chair Jeff Brower said, regarding a possible boost in the annual assessment. “We have people sitting in this room who have lost their homes to flooding. … We’re getting flooding now with normal rainfall.”

With memories of Hurricane Ian in 2022 still fresh in the minds of many, and hurricanes Helene and Milton’s effects still being felt and seen, the council heard from the county administration a recommendation to increase the stormwater charge in the unincorporated areas. The county’s non-ad valorem assessment for stormwater management is now $6.50 per month, or $78 per year, per standard home or equivalent residential unit (ERU) of space in commercial, industrial and institutional structures. 

The rate now in effect generates approximately $5 million per year, according to an official report, and that is not enough to build new infrastructure to lessen the risks of flooding in newly developed and settled areas. 

County Public Works Director Ben Bartlett suggested the council authorize a maximum of $12 per month, or $144 per year, for stormwater control, noting such a fee would yield about $9.2 million per year. That higher rate, he said, could be enacted all at once or gradually, as in annual increments of $1 or so. 

The council deferred raising the cap, or maximum amount that the county may impose.

The stormwater budget would include some, but not all new projects. Even the higher charge would not cover all of the estimated anti-flooding needs now or in the future.

“There are grants for capital,” County Manager George Recktenwald said, meaning local funding for infrastructure could be applied as a match to state or federal outlays for new stormwater projects.

“You have to have money to go and get money,” he also noted.

What is the best current price tag for building stormwater systems that will meet the demands of the people who live here? 

Council Member David Santiago ventured to say the cost “could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.”

The council’s latest discussions come following their decision last month to allocate millions from a special federal appropriation for relief from Hurricane Ian. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has given a $328.9 million Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery grant to Volusia County, and the council opted to set aside $60.7 million for stormwater projects. These numbers do not include what individual cities spend to head off flooding within their jurisdiction. 

Other solutions?

Yet, officials warned, more money will probably be needed to avert future drainage problems.

As the council’s latest debate progressed, attention turned toward finding other sources of cash for the county’s stormwater needs. One idea was to resurrect the idea of levying a half-cent local-option sales tax for capital projects. A majority of the county’s electorate rejected such a tax in 2019.

Council members raised the prospect of imposing an impact fee for stormwater on new construction.

“It’s obviously a multi-pronged problem,” Council Member Jake Johansson said. “I think we need to address that holistically. … If we’re hung up on impact fees, we’re not going to get enough from that.”

From there, Santiago urged his colleagues to seek greater funding from the state. Himself a former member of the Florida House of Representatives, Santiago said county officials should prepare a list of “shovel-ready projects” that may qualify for funding from the Legislature.

“I don’t want to miss this legislative session,” he added.

“We’re under a time crunch. The Legislature is in session now,” Santiago also said. “They’re in committee weeks.”

Requests for state appropriations may be discussed in the Capitol, and thus Volusia County may have the opportunity “to potentially double our money.”

Santiago persuaded the council to postpone any increase in the county’s stormwater fee, pending upcoming deliberations in the Legislature. He did, however, recommend the county government act quickly to make their requests for stormwater projects to key state legislators.

“To me, it’s barking up the wrong tree to ask people to pay more,” County Council Vice Chair Troy Kent said. “It’s a tax, and it hurts those who need the most relief.”

Kent favored delaying any increase in the stormwater assessment until he and his colleagues find out if state lawmakers will help Volusia with its water woes.

Even if funding comes forth from Tallahassee, Johansson said some expense will be borne locally.

“We have to come to the grim realization that it’s going to cost,” Johansson said.

Maintenance, however, is not covered by such grant funding, Recktenwald added.

“It’s an expensive endeavor to maintain,” he said. “You’re going to see a huge amount of projects.”

“As you add infrastructure, you will have to add people,” Recktenwald continued.

Recktenwald knows from experience. He served as the county’s public-works director before he became county manager.

New studies needed

One of the essential expenses before deciding on new projects involves updating previous studies of stormwater problem areas. Some of those consultants’ reports are 30 years old. 

“Those studies need to be updated,” Bartlett said. 

“Do these studies also recommend solutions?” Santiago asked.

“Yes,” replied Bartlett.

As well as building new systems to move stormwater away from where people live, work and play, Recktenwald said, the studies may determine where new projects may be insufficient or too costly, or where repetitive flooding may occur.

“The solutions [may be] to buy the houses,” he said, and make new stormwater-retention ponds on the former homesites.

The process of raising stormwater fees, and cutting budgets

Raising the county’s stormwater fee is a two-step process. First, the County Council would have to pass a resolution setting a ceiling, or maximum amount, of the assessment. Another resolution would have to be adopted later to set the amount of the increase and the actual charge. The maximum charge now in effect was authorized by a resolution that the council approved in 2005.

In any event, the likelihood of having to pay more to prevent or mitigate flooding weighed heavily on the council.

While he expressed support for raising the stormwater charges to pay for the problems at hand, Brower agreed people will face hardships.

“I believe we do need to look at our budgets,” he said. “We can’t keep squeezing money out of our constituents.”

Brower urged his peers to scrutinize the next budget for possible savings and spending cuts, even perhaps in such seemingly untouchable sectors as law enforcement. Although the county’s next fiscal year does not begin until Oct. 1, the county administrative staff typically begins work on the new budget in January.

Combating stormwater problems, Brower said, “needs to be our priority.”

“We need bare-bones budgets,” he added. “We need to look at everything. … We need to look and see where we can cut.”

Council Member Danny Robins reminded Brower that the council last month had opted not to slash or eliminate annual grants for a host of nonprofit organizations.

“We would have $600,000 that we approved for the [cultural] arts program,” he told Brower and others.

Robins’ motion to delay any increases in the county’s stormwater assessment and to lobby state lawmakers for grant funding for flood prevention was adopted on a 6-1 vote. Brower dissented.

“For me, this is an urgent issue,” he said.

‘Stormwater knows no boundaries’

Elected and appointed officials of both Volusia County and the cities within it agree the flooding problems do not fit nicely inside jurisdictional boundaries.

In dealing with the flooding, officials, planners, engineers and high-water victims acknowledge the need for inter-local and regional collaboration to head off disasters from deluges. 

At the outset of the Dec. 3 County Council meeting, Deltona businessman Mel Himes told the council there is a need to join forces to solve flooding problems now and on the way. He blamed the flooding of a barn on his farm along Lake DuPont on uncontrolled water coming from surrounding areas. The water spilling over into Deltona, Himes said, would cause fewer problems for Deltonans such as himself if the St. Johns River Water Management District would permit Deltona to keep open a ditch system that allows excess water to flow from north central Deltona into Lake Bethel and into Lake Monroe. 

“Now, I don’t know if you all have ever gotten together with the officials of DeLand, of Lake Helen, of Cassadaga, of Orange City and Deltona, but you all need to be aware that in a study just recently presented to Deltona, that all of these cities reside in the Lake Theresa Water Basin, and your water from DeLand, from Lake Helen, Cassadaga, from Orange City, flows through that natural flow down into the lakes of Deltona and out through that drainage system into the St. Johns River. But if those gates aren’t controlled by our cities in West Volusia County or you guys, we’ve got a major problem,” Himes said. “And I would encourage you to form an alliance to go against this government entity and to ask them to release the control of that gate, so that the flooding that we’re experiencing now can at least be addressed immediately.”

“Stormwater knows no boundaries,” county Public Works Director Ben Bartlett later said.

“We all have to agree to work together,” Council Member Jake Johansson said.