At its June 11 meeting, the Southwest Florida Water Management District’s Coastal Rivers Basin Board adopted a proposed fiscal year 2010 (FY2010) millage rate of 0.1885 mill, which is the same as the current fiscal year. The Coastal Rivers Basin Board covers portions of Citrus, Hernando and Pasco counties.
This millage rate, combined with a reduction in taxable property values as estimated by the county property appraisers, will result in an estimated 11.62 percent decrease in ad valorem property tax revenue from FY2009. These estimates will be updated when the property appraisers release their certified taxable property values in July.
The proposed budget for FY2010 is $8,069,764, which is a decrease of $1,489,654 from the approved FY2009 budget. The main reasons for this decrease are reductions in ad valorem revenue and balances available from prior years. FY2010 will run from Oct. 1, 2009 through Sept. 30, 2010.
For the owner of a $150,000 home with a $50,000 homestead exemption, the FY2010 Basin Board tax would be $18.85, or about $1.57 per month.
The Coastal Rivers Basin Board’s FY2010 proposed budget includes $359,268 for projects in the District’s Surface Water Improvement and Management (SWIM) Program. The SWIM Program was established by the Florida Legislature in 1987 and requires the state’s five water management districts to maintain a priority list of water bodies of regional or statewide significance. The districts develop plans and programs to improve these water bodies.
One of the SWIM projects is the NW 6th Street Drainage/Stormwater Treatment Improvements project, which will improve water quality within Kings Bay.
The project involves constructing a stormwater treatment system that will treat runoff and alleviate periodic, localized flooding from the area near NW 6th Street and US
Highway 19. Untreated stormwater runoff currently discharges directly into Kings Bay, which is a priority water body of the District’s SWIM Program.
The stormwater treatment system includes the installation of a baffle box or Continuous Deflective Separation (CDS) unit to capture sediments and other pollutants before the water flows into the bay.
The cost to complete this project is expected to be $200,000, which will be divided equally between the District and the City of Crystal River. In FY2010, the District’s Coastal Rivers Basin Board has budgeted $106,008 for this project.
The project is expected to be completed by February 2010.
The Basin Board’s proposed budget also includes $2.35 million for 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 proposed budget is the Pasco County Wet Weather Reclaimed Water Reservoir – Boyette project, which will supply up to 5,500 additional residential customers with reclaimed water.
This multi-year project involves constructing a reservoir on the old Swan Lake borrow pit property. The 140-acre parcel is located approximately one mile northeast of the Wesley Chapel Wastewater Treatment Facility. The reservoir will be built to store up to 600 million gallons of reclaimed water from the county’s reclaimed water system.
This project involves the design, permitting and construction of the reservoir. This project is expected to provide an average of 3.3 million gallons of water per day (mgd), which will offset approximately 1.65 mgd of potable water.
Because this project is part of a regional effort to increase the use of reclaimed water, the $18.55 million project will receive funding from the District’s Coastal Rivers, Hillsborough River and Pinellas-Anclote River Basin Boards and the District’s Governing Board. In FY2010, the Coastal Rivers Basin Board has budgeted $311,945 for this project. Funding for future fiscal years is contingent upon Basin Board approval.
The District has seven regional Basin Boards that provide guidance for local programs that are specific to the watershed basins they protect. The District’s eighth 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 13 members of the District’s Governing Board that serves as the Board’s chair ex officio.
The District’s Governing Board will adopt proposed millage rates for the District’s General Fund and the Basin Boards at its monthly meeting on July 28 at the Polk County Administration Building, 330 W. Church St. in Bartow. These millage rates will be used by county property appraisers when mailing out Truth in Millage (TRIM) notices to residents. The Basin Boards will meet again in August to adopt their final millage rates and budgets.
Two statutorily required public TRIM hearings on the District’s total budget will be held in September. The first will be Sept. 15 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. 29 at 5:01 p.m. at the District’s Brooksville headquarters. 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 meetings to provide comments on the proposed budgets.