Rain-tax billing will wait

The county could eventually face fines if it doesn't implement a program.
By STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Trumbull County officials will wait at least until January to impose a $15 fee on residential property-tax bills to pay for a new department to manage storm-water runoff.
At several meetings this year, officials discussed collecting the fee for the first time on property-tax bills scheduled to be sent out this spring. However, commissioners did not act to impose the fee, and the deadline to print it on second-half tax bills has past, Commissioner Joseph J. Angelo said.
The $15 annual fee would have applied to homeowners in Bazetta, Brookfield, Champion, Howland, Hubbard Township, Liberty, Newton Township, Vienna, Warren Township, Weathersfield, Cortland, Girard, Hubbard city, McDonald, Newton Falls and Niles.
Businesses in those areas also would also have been charged a fee based on the amount of water calculated to run off their property.
Required program
Fees at the level proposed would raise about $750,000 a year to reduce and monitor sources of water pollution. The program is required to be fully in place by 2008, or else the county will face fines from the EPA, said John Woolard of the county soil and water conservation district.
A similar program is already in place in the city of Warren.
"I want to wait and see what we can do without raising the fee," said Commissioner Dan Polivka, who met with soil and water and EPA officials on the issue this week. "That should be the last resort."
County commissioners approved a plan last year to gradually bring the county into compliance with EPA goals. Employees at the planning commission, soil and water conservation district and health department will still try to complete this year's goals, but without additional money, Woolard said.
This year, the plan calls for the county to create a map of drainage into waterways and develop regulations on soil erosion, he said.
The county's next opportunity to levy the fee will be with property-tax bills in January.
"I don't think it will be a disaster if we wait that long," Woolard said. "I think that if we wait longer than that, it will be a real problem."
Officials designing the program had initially proposed a $30 annual fee, but it was scaled back at the county commissioners' request.