Republican Representative Garth Everett, in a cosponsorship memorandum posted on February 1st, announced plans to reintroduce a package of bills that would expand the ability of municipalities throughout Pennsylvania to assess stormwater management fees. These proposals, contained in former House Bills 913 through 916 (2017-2018 session), died in the Senate last term after being passed with bipartisan support by the House.
The package of bills has since been introduced – House Bills 473 and 474, which cover boroughs, incorporated towns, third-class cities and first-class townships. The reintroduced proposals generally follow word-for-word the legislative language seen in last term’s proposals, as well as the previously-enacted stormwater fee law covering second-class townships, Act 62 of 2016. Affected municipalities would have the authority to impose “reasonable and uniform” stormwater management fees. Fees could be assessed using one of three methods: (1) on all properties in the municipality; (2) on all properties benefited by a specific storm water project; or (3) on all property owners within a specially designated storm water management district.
As was the case with the prior proposals, these bills are not intended to raise general fund revenues for municipalities. All revenues collected from the imposition of the fee may only be used for stormwater management projects.
For more information about these proposals, please see our prior post on the topic, at https://www.mcneespublicsector.com/2017/08/new-funding-mechanisms-municipal-stormwater-management/.