An open records request made to the City of Lubbock shows how much money is being collected from the storm water fees.
KLBK News asked for storm water revenue from January to March of 2010 to 2015. The whole revenue was sent, with four lines, but we predominantly focused on the line dealing with the metered information.
Here’s how the numbers in the general consumers metered break down:
January 2010 – $1,038,108.49
February 2010 – $1,017,754.23
March 2010 – $1,015,837.64
January 2011 – $1,352,585.35
February 2011 – $1,347,895.38
March 2011 – $1,369,974.92
January 2012 – $1,603,184.78
February 2012 – $1,583,561.31
March 2012 – $1,504,076.48
January 2013 – $1,618,165.18
February 2013 – $1,520,778.06
March 2013 – $1,687,152.21
January 2014 – $1,647,774.25
February 2014 – $1,628,835.44
March 2014 – $1,627,901.45
January 2015 – $1, 960,611
February 2015 – $1,987,957
March 2015 – $1,955,522
The Lubbock City Council approved a storm water rate structure change that went into effect in January 2015. That had some people in the city frustrated over their new rates.
“The reason for the increase revenues is, bottom line, we’ve got more debt and we have to amortize the debt,” Mayor Glen Robertson said.
According to Robertson, there is about $140 million in storm water debt right now from a number of projects throughout the city to help with storm water mitigation.
“I think this last month has really proven that we cannot quit mitigating our storm water,” Robertson said. “We’re a large city, when it rains, we’re flat we have to move that water, so it’s expensive, the good news is these last two projects should really be, have everything in good shape for the next 20 to 30 years depending on future growth.”
The city council will once again discuss storm water rates at their meeting on Thursday.