TRAVERSE CITY — Grand Traverse County officials this week rejected a proposal to boost fees on septic tank waste by 67 percent to bail out the sputtering county septage treatment plant.
Instead, they'll attempt to levy a special property tax assessment on septic tank owners.
Elmwood Township officials wanted the county Board of Public Works to raise septic fees to help cover estimated losses of $460,000 at the septage treatment plant in 2012. But the proposal failed by a 4 to 2 vote during a BPW subcommittee meeting this week.
BPW members then voted 7 to 1 to direct its staffers to launch a process to levy an annual property tax assessment on all properties in Grand Traverse County that contain septic tanks. The BPW wants to start now in hopes of getting the new fee on summer tax bills.
"A special assessment is something that takes time to do, and if it is going to happen we've got to get started on it," said Chuck Korn, Garfield Township supervisor and BPW chairman. "If we decide later it's not going to happen we can end it."
Marvin Radtke, the rural township representative on the BPW, cast the lone no vote.
Officials from rural townships don't want a special assessment and have threatened to revoke ordinances that require homeowners to have their septage treated at the county plant.
The $7.8 million plant opened in 2005; officials then believed a 12-cent-per-gallon fee on septage would pay for the plant. Operators soon learned that projections of the amount of septage available for treatment were wildly inflated, and it cost almost twice as much to operate the plant as its supporters promised.
Local officials temporarily kept the plant financially afloat by treating contaminated groundwater from the Bay Harbor Resort in Petoskey and from a $725,000 cash settlement from the plant design team and project manager. Those cash sources dried up.
"We've reached the end of those windfalls and the sole thing ahead of us now is red ink," Korn said.
The first task for a special assessment is to determine realistic numbers, said Mike Slater, director of the county department of public works.
Slater came up with a rough estimate of an annual $35 tax, though septage treatment costs would be trimmed to 6 cents per gallon. He warned that more studying must be done to firm up those costs.
He also wants to contract with an accounting firm to review all financial projections.
"It may be late January or February before we get all of the costs and figures together," Slater said.
The BPW also instructed its attorney to begin work on the legal concerns involved in creating a special assessment.
Elmwood Supervisor Jack Kelly said he wasn't surprised his township's request to raise fees failed. He supports the move to begin the special assessment process, but doubts it will survive likely legal and political hurdles.
"I don't see it as workable, but I welcome the opportunity to be proven wrong," Kelly said.
