01-08-2025 Workshop Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MA-14 SEWER AVAILABILITY CHARGE (SAC) the cost, of wastewater treatment systems and because excessive I/I in one city can affect development capacity of another. However, there is the potential for cities to incur increasingly exorbitant costs in their ongoing efforts to mitigate excessive I/I. Therefore, managing I/I at a regional as well as local level, is critical to effective mitigation and cost management. Metro Cities continues to monitor the surcharge program and supports continued reviews of the methodology used to measure excess I/I to ensure that the methodology appropriately normalizes for precipitation variability and the Council’s work with cities on community specific issues around I/I. Metro Cities supports state financial assistance for metro area I/I mitigation through future Clean Water Legacy Act appropriations or similar legislation and encourages the Metropolitan Council to partner in support of such appropriations. Metro Cities also supports resources, including identified best practices, information on model ordinances, public education and outreach, and other tools, to local governments to address inflow/ infiltration mitigation for private properties. A 2023 task force recommended parameters for a private property inflow-infiltration program that will be funded through a portion of the regional wastewater charge. As a program gets underway, Metro Cities will monitor program criteria for transparency and accessibility for eligible cities. Metro Cities supports continued state capital assistance to provide grants to metropolitan cities for mitigating inflow and infiltration problems into municipal wastewater collection systems. Grant funding should continue to be structured so that all eligible cities have access to this funding assistance. Metro Cities supports a SAC program that emphasizes equity, transparency, simplification, and lower rates. Metro Cities supports principles for SAC that include program transparency and simplicity, equity for all served communities and between current and future users, support for cities’ sewer fee capacities, administrative reasonableness, and weighing any program uses for specific goals against impacts to program equity, transparency, and simplicity. As such, Metro Cities opposes the use of the SAC mechanism to subsidize or incent specific Metropolitan Council goals and objectives. Input from local officials should be sought if the SAC reserve is proposed to be used for any purpose other than debt service, including pay-as-you-go (PAYGO). Metro Cities opposes increases to the SAC rate while the reserve is projected to exceed the Metropolitan Council’s minimum reserve balance, without the express engagement of city officials in the metropolitan area. Metro Cities supports current SAC program criteria that use gross square feet in making SAC determinations, and do not require a new SAC determination for business remodels that do not change the use of the property. These changes were the result of a 2018 task force that made recommendations to simplify the SAC program for users, and to reduce incidents of “surprise” SAC charges. 70