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City of Lino Lakes SWMP | February 8, 2013 Draft | 86 7.0 Financial Considerations Plan implementation tasks are presented in two ways. First are city -wide costs for stormwater related activities that would apply cit y -wide and are not specific to a certain subwatershed. Those costs are further divided into the 12 Issue Categories ident ified during the planning process and reflected in the City’s Local Surface Water Management Plan. For cost estimating, the 12 categories are listed separately, but in the implementation of those activities from a practical stand point, there will be some activities that can be coordinated to facilitate ease of implementation. There has been an effort NOT to duplicate or create redundant funding in these costs estimates, so some efficiency of implementation is included in the costs. Secondly, implementat ion costs are also provided based on the s ubwatershed. The city contains 15 Subwatersheds of various sizes and complexity and therefore the needs of each will be unique. The management at the Subwatershed level is to reinforce the City’s Comprehensive Pl an approach of developing Resource Management Unit level planning and management at that Subwatershed scale. The top 3 priority subwatersheds have the costs provided with more detail due to their higher likelihood of experiencing growth and development. All the Subwatershed/RMUs will require a more detailed RMU Plan be developed for them to better detail the trunk infrastructure costs needed. Those RMU Plan costs are included in the cost estimate table for approximately half of the RMUs based on the expe cted need for the plans and local issues arising (development, TMDLs, etc.) Many of the items fall under past activities that have been typically included in the City’s budget for stormwater infrastructure. The City currently has a Surface Water Manageme nt Charge that is updated annually based on the Engineering News Record (ENR ) Index for new development to cover the cost of administration, planning, and trunk/regional infrastructure. It is recommended that this fee, updated with the new cost informatio n, will be used to fund the Subwatershed/RMU Plans. The costs identified in the RMU studies would then be used to update the fee schedule in future years. With each RMU identified individually, the City will have the opportunity to decide if they would l ike the fee schedules different for the various RMUs or combined for a city -wide average. The remainder of the stormwater funding comes from the general fund of the city which also covers some of the stormwater planning and implementation needs. While th is is common practice in many communities such as Lino Lakes, the more the specialized, user -fee type funds can be used, typically the more stable and adequate the funding is. Other sources of funding and revenue are also worth considering. The creation of a wetland bank as shown in the implementation plan, with time can be self - funded since there is a need for wetland bank credits. Grant opportunities at the state and local (ex. watershed) level can and should be leveraged to relieve local funding press ures and in some cases accelerate implementation.