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3 <br />MEMORANDUM <br />TO: County Commissioners <br />John Link, County Manager <br />COPIES: Geoff Gledhill, County Attorney <br />Rod Visser, Assistant County Manager <br />Craig Benedict, Planning Director <br />Ken Chavious, Finance Director <br />Diane Reid, Economic Development Director <br />FROM: Paul Thames, PE, County Engine~;r-~ <br />DATE: September 23, 1999 <br />SUBJECT: Efland sewer system fees <br />At its work session of April 13, 1999, in the Board discussion dealing with approval of BOCC goals, <br />Commissioners instructed staff to create a goal that integrated a numberof issues relative to planning <br />concerns, economic development and utility services. in the Efland -Mebane - Buckhorn Road EDD <br />area. One element of that goal was to be a rate/fee study culminating in recommendations for revising <br />both the fee and the rate structure for the existing and an expandedEfland sewer system. The overall <br />goal is currently being developed by Planning, Economic Development and Manager's staff. However, <br />staff strongly recommend that the effort to revise the fee (but not the rate) structure for Efland sewer <br />system move forward independent of and preceding the process to develop and approve the remaining <br />elements of the revenue structure or the overall goal. <br />The existing fee structure for the Efland sewer system was created by the BOCC and incorporated in the <br />Rules and Regulations for the Operation of the System as adopted by the Board in November 1.985 and <br />amended in November 1988. Section III, Rate Schedule and Availability Fees, specifies that: <br />a) availability fees are to be $600 for the County and $400 for the Town of Hillsborough; and <br />b) availability fees may change pursuant to duly enacted resolutions of the County and the Town. While <br />the official rules contain subsections for both Acreage Fees and Stub-out Service Line Fees, the <br />subsections are noted as [Reserved] and contain no specified fee amounts or instructions, directions or <br />provisions for applying those fees. <br />The effect of (1) the lack of a fee structure for acreage and stub-out service line fees and (2) the very <br />low County portion of the access fee has been to impose a financial burden on the Efland sewer <br />enterprise fund. One measure of the :nature and extent of burden is revealed by the degree to which the <br />enterprise fund -supplemented by annual allocations from the General Fund -must subsidize the <br />capital costs of providing/constructing service lines to connect new customers to the sewer system.. The <br />current costs for installing/constructing stub-out service line range from $800 to more than $3000, <br />depending on a variety of factors related to construction conditions. Given the existing $600 cap on the <br />County portion of the availability fees, the County must subsidize the cost of installing each sewer tap <br />by an amount that varies between $200 and $2400. Furthermore, under the provisions of the Rules of <br />