For your consideration ...
But but but .... you're supposed to know about everything that happens in Calvert. : )
So, the County did it backwards? From my understating, a developer, or homeowner building a house, is charged for each required house/dwelling EDU when the permits are pulled when building so the house can be connected to the water and septic service. I believe this falls under the impact fees? Then to bill for actual water usage. In this case, it seems the County is trying to charge again/extra for an another physical connection when the house is already connected.
Either way, it appears those employed by the County have no clue as to what they are doing. And barring any public hearing on the matter, the County has no legal standing to charge any homeowner for any extra EDU's after the fact, after the home is built and an occupancy permit issued. At least to my understanding anyway.
Ok, I just read her Facebook page.
During the site plan/permitting phase water/sewer tap fees are paid. They're part of the cost of building a house/building in the County that has access to water/sewer. They're separate from the excise fees (used to be called impact fees) that go to schools, roads and recreation.
I'd have to see her bill to figure it out. Water and sewer charges have two parts usually (full disclosure, I don't know how the County breaks its bills out). The two parts consist of usage charges and benefit charges. The usage charges are what it means-the cost of supplying/treating the water and sewage. It also goes to maintenance and upkeep of the system unless that's a capital expense (new pumps are capital, repairs are not)
Benefit charges are to pay off the bonds used to construct the system, rebuild the system, the upgrades needed to meet new regulations (Enhanced Nutrient Removal is an example. The estimates for that were off, from both the EPA and MD Department of the Environment by a factor of 2 or 3 times. The bonds for that are what the Flush Tax funds).
It may be that her water/sewer area had some capital improvements done (new water tank, new treatment equipment) which would increase the benefit charge. Also, all users on the system are on the hook to pay those benefit charges, there is no division between "legacy" users and "new" users.
Also, the addition of another dwelling like an apartment in the basement, a mother in law cottage, etc. can trigger the imposition of another tap fee. The theory there is that an EDU is being added and adding users to the system. The County is a bit looser for those on excise (impact) fees but not much.
The cost of water and sewer treatment, to include equipment, chemicals, etc., has skyrocketed over the last several years. North Beach didn't raise water rates for over ten years so now the bills steadily increase every year. They weren't raised for political reasons so now the increases are larger than if they'd been raised a little bit each year. The end result would have been the same but not as jarring. Calvert may be doing the same thing, not raising rates for years and now playing catch up.
I
think the County does the same thing as North Beach and divorces Water/Sewer charges from the General Fund and puts them into what's called an Enterprise Fund. Trash fees have the same accounting. The reason to do that is because, in theory, the elected officials can't "borrow" money from the Enterprise Funds to fund General Fund expenditures with the promise to "replace them next year". If there's anything most elected officials can't stand is having money laying around in a fund earmarked for something and not being spent. O'Malley did that with the Highway User Funds and State Pension System money. That's why Hogan tried to replace it over his eight years, so much was taken out by O'Malley even the fixed spending couldn't be covered let alone anything new.
Thank you for the compliment but the reality is that I've backed out of my "community" stuff the last three or four years. I was involved in one way or another for over thirty years and it was time to let others get involved.
