Now we have a better idea how much Albany’s coming  rain tax — the official tag is storm water utility fee — will cost each and every household, depending on what the city council later decides. While no decisions have been made, the council spent two hours Monday being briefed on the potential details.
Albany’s new law setting up a storm water or rain tax utility is on the city council’s Monday work session agenda to be repealed. But even if it is repealed, it likely won’t be gone forever or for long.
Still no word on what Albany’s proposed rain tax will cost you when – not if – it starts being collected, probably starting next spring. No definite word, at least, but an unauthorized hint based on arithmetic alone.
The rules under which small Oregon towns will have to operate their storm water systems are still in flux, and how costly they will be and what effect they will have on Albany’s eventual rain tax nobody knows.
In its march toward an Albany rain tax, the city council says the foremost reason for adopting this storm water disposal fee is a federal requirement. But it’s not clear that the feds actually require very much or that what they require has to cost a lot of money.
Nobody can yet say how stiff Albany’s rain tax will be. But in Oregon cities that already have one, the average is just under $9 a month.
The rain tax: An expense for some
Many homeowners may hardly notice Albany’s planned new storm water utility fee — a rain tax, in other words — when it takes effect next year. But for the city’s utility customers with the largest amounts of impervious surface, such as schools and companies with big buildings and parking lots, it will be a bigger expense. How much […]
Tags: Albany rain tax, storm water utility