As Pasco County continues to dry out from this summer’s heavy rain, leaders are looking for new ways to fix flooding woes.
County commissioners voted on Wednesday to increase the storm water fee from $47 to $57.
“This increase in no way addresses this flooding issue,” said County Public Works Director, Mike Garrett.
Garrett said the money will help get back what the county once had before millions of dollars in cuts.
“We have a contractor that cleans big ditches, big ponds and things like that, that have never been cleaned in years, we cut that,” said Garrett. “That was about $1.5 million, I’m putting that back in.”
Garrett said losing out on those services and the money certainly didn’t help with the recent flooding. Something residents agree with.
“This is our community, this is our home," said Valerie Schaefer, who was impacted by the flooding. "It’s our largest asset. Most of the people here, it’s their largest asset, it hasn’t been maintained.”
Schaefer has had to spend thousands of dollars to fix her Cranes Roost home. She said paying an extra $10 in storm fees will be worth it but she wants to see more done.
“It’s been (a) band-aid, we’ve had pumps, water is going out but we are not fixing the problem,” said Schaefer.
County leaders said really fixing the problem will take years.
“We’re up to about $78 million worth of potential projects that are shovel ready or we’re ready to go to design on, and we have an additional 300 to 400 that haven’t even been looked at,” said Garrett.
The increase in the fee will generate $2.5 million more a year but it’s still short of what the county needs.
A workshop will be held October 13 to go over some of the projects and to decide whether a countywide assessment would be appropriate or to tax by areas that benefit from the proposed projects.