WESTFIELD – The Finance Committee last night balked at appropriating $122,175 of stormwater funds to a project only tangentially related to stormwater management.
The committee met with City Engineer Mark Cressotti prior to the full City Council session to determine what percentage of the project to update the city’s global information system (GIS) was directly related to the stormwater management program. Cressotti said that about 20 percent of the GIS update was directly linked to the city’s stormwater management effort.
The Finance Committee then voted to amend the appropriation request to reflect that percentage and presented a motion to fund $24,435 of the GIS project, with the remaining 80 percent to come from another source, such as free cash.
Ward 5 Councilor Richard E. Onofrey Jr., who is also the finance chairman, said the GIS project will benefit the entire city, and the funding should be in line with that general benefit.
“The GIS has not been updated in 16 years,” Onofrey said. “The Engineering Department, year after year, has put in a budget request to update the GIS and year after year it gets cut.”
However, Onofrey said the “stormwater funds should be used for stormwater purposes and not spent on other items because it’s there. We recommend giving Engineering 20 percent of this sum and ask the administration to fund the other 80 percent from other sources.”
Onofrey said that the GIS update will aid the city in its effort to move to a flat stormwater management fee which the council is considering amending.
The residential rate is a flat $20 per year under the current ordinance, while the nonresidential rate is based upon the area of impervious surface, structures and paved lots, at a rate of 4 1/2 cents per square foot, with a nonresidential minimum annual rate of $100 and a maximum annual rate of $640.
Ward 1 Councilor Christopher Keefe has argued that a more equitable system is to charge all property owners based on the amount of impervious surface, but at a much lower rate. Keefe has proposed a single fee structure that would charge a property owner three quarters of a cent (.0075) per square foot of impervious surface. The GIS would be used to calculate that impervious area.
Keefe and At-large Councilor Brent B. Bean II voted against the Finance Committee motion last night. Keefe said that the council sent the proposal to the Board of Public Works for its review and recommendation in early March and that the board has not responded.
At-large Councilor David A. Flaherty, a member of the Finance Committee, agreed with Onofrey that there is a need to upgrade the city’s GIS, but also agreed that the stormwater funds should not be used “for general purpose benefit to the city. Only 20 percent of the survey cost is legitimately related to stormwater management.”
The funding was approved by a 11-2 vote of the council.
