At its August 3 meeting, the Southwest Florida Water Management District’s Alafia River Basin Board adopted a fiscal year 2007 (FY2007) millage rate of 0.240 mill, which is the same as the current fiscal year.
The budget for FY2007 is $8,377,561, which is an increase of $1,664,397 from the adopted FY2006 budget. The main reason for this budget increase is due to increased property values and additional balances available from the prior year. FY2007 will run from Oct. 1, 2006, through Sept. 30, 2007.
The Alafia River Basin Board area covers the southern portion of Hillsborough County and the southwestern portion of Polk County. For the owner of a $125,000 home with a $25,000 homestead exemption, the FY2007 Basin Board tax will be $24, or about $2 per month.
The Alafia River Basin Board’s FY2007 budget includes funding for Cooperative Funding projects. These projects are proposed by local governments and organizations, and are usually funded equally by the Basin Board and the local cooperator. Two of the Alafia River Basin Board’s Cooperative Funding projects are updating the watershed management plans for Hillsborough County and evaluating Polk County’s watersheds.
Updating Hillsborough County’s watershed management plans is a multi-year funded project. The updated watershed management plans are used to update the flood plain maps.
Four watersheds were updated from FY2004 to FY2006. Funding for FY2007 will be used to update the Double Branch Creek watersheds and to complete the Alafia River update. The FY2007 budget for this project is $512,830, which will be jointly funded by three of the District’s Basin Boards and Hillsborough County. The District’s share of $260,830 will be divided among the Basins as follows: Alafia River $102,146; Hillsborough River $107,399; Northwest Hillsborough $51,285. Future funding to complete the project is contingent upon Basin Board approval.
Another Cooperative Funding project is the Polk County Watershed Evaluation. This project is important because Polk County is experiencing very rapid growth, which threatens to expand into areas that have recurrent flooding.
This project involves collecting topographic information for the 1,587 square-mile portion of Polk County that falls within the District and developing watershed evaluations for 17 watersheds. There are 25 watersheds within the District’s portion of Polk County, eight of which have already been or are currently being evaluated.
The topographic information will be derived from Light Detection and Ranging Laser-based technology (LiDAR) data the District collected in 2005.
The District is contributing $598,506 for this project for FY2007, which will be divided among the Basin Boards as follows: Alafia River $70,777; Governing Board for Green Swamp Basin $149,481; Hillsborough River $39,679; Peace River $338,569. Polk County is contributing an additional $418,257 for this project for a total FY2007 project budget of $1,016,763. These funds will be used to complete the topographic information and begin the watershed evaluation. Future funding to complete the project is contingent upon Basin Board approval.
The Basin Board’s budget also includes $3 million for the Water Supply and Resource Development program, which provides matching funds for the development of additional new sustainable water supplies.
One of the Water Supply and Resource Development projects in the budget is the South Central Hillsborough Infrastructure Improvements project, which is being completed in cooperation with Tampa Bay Water. This project will connect Hillsborough County’s entire South-Central Service Area to Tampa Bay Water’s regional surface water supply. Having the ability to provide alternative resources to the area will allow Tampa Bay Water to manage groundwater withdrawals in response to changing environmental conditions. District funding will also be used to construct connections to the main and standardize water treatment to ensure all water in the main is compatible.
This multi-year project is expected to be complete in FY2009. Funding for construction in FY2007 will be divided between the District, two Basin Boards and Tampa Bay Water. The District’s Governing Board is contributing $824,414, the District’s Alafia River Basin Board is contributing $717,341 and the District’s Hillsborough River Basin Board is contributing $107,072. State funding in the amount of $506,854 will be provided from the Water Protection and Sustainability Trust Fund for Alternative Water Supply Development. Funding for additional fiscal
years is contingent upon Governing Board and Basin Board approval.
The District has eight regional Basin Boards that provide guidance for local programs that are specific to the watershed basins they protect. The District’s ninth basin, the Green Swamp, is administered by the Governing Board. Basin Boards work with local governments and other entities on water resource projects that have an impact in local communities. Basin Boards often provide partial funding for these projects in partnership with a local government or local cooperator.
Basin Board members are unpaid citizen volunteers appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate. They serve three-year staggered terms. Each of the Basin Boards includes a minimum of one person from each county within the basin, and there must be at least three members on each board. Each Basin Board has at least one of the 11 members of the District’s Governing Board that serves as the Board’s chair ex officio.
The District’s Governing Board will adopt millage rates for the District’s General Fund and the eight Basin Boards in September after two statutorily required public Truth in Millage (TRIM) hearings have been held. The first will be Sept. 12 at 5:01 p.m. at the District’s Tampa Service Office.
The Governor’s office will review and approve the budgets of all five water management districts before the second and final public hearing.
The District’s second and final TRIM hearing will be Sept. 26 at 5:01 p.m. at the District’s Tampa Service Office. At the conclusion of the hearing, the Governing Board will formally adopt the final millage rates and budgets. The public is welcome to attend any Governing Board or Basin Board meeting to provide comment on the budgets.