The Eugene Chamber of Commerce said Friday that it sees progress in a recent vote by the Eugene City Council that implemented an 18% hike to the city’s stormwater fee to help plug a looming gap in next year’s city budget, calling it “a step in the right direction” in a media release.
The city, facing an $11.5 million shortfall in the next fiscal year, had previously planned to implement a new fire fee to raise $10 million.
A group with backing from the Chamber gathered signatures and petitioned to put the fire fee to voters instead.
Chamber President and CEO Brittany Quick-Warner said, with the smaller stormwater fee in place, the next step is now to repeal the fire fee before it heads to voters.
"If that isn’t taken off the table, we are definitely going to lose the trust of the public," she said. "That not only are we asking for this immediate increase to the stormwater fee, but we’re now still keeping on the table another fee on top of that."
Another step that needs to be taken is finding cuts in the city budget to make up for the rest of the shortfall, a process Quick-Warner would like to see have greater transparency both this time and in future budgets.
“It’s going to take having some, in our opinion, financial experts, folks who do this for a living to sit down and go through the city’s budget and to look at what are some of the expenditures, what are the revenue sources currently, and how do we talk about long term property tax growth through business expansion and home development,” said Quick-Warner.
The stormwater fee increase would amount to roughly $3.50 each month for residential users, about $47 per month for small commercial building owners, and up to $670 per month for large commercial buildings.
The fire fee would be based on a building’s square footage, costing a median single-family homeowner about $10 each month and a median commercial customer $38 a month.
During their meeting Wednesday, Eugene City Council members did agree to decide whether to remove the fire fee from the ballot before they leave for summer break in July.
