Local Road Paving Municipal Service Taxing Unit (MSTU) – Board of County Commissioners (BCC) – No Funding Required

1:05:54Yes.

1:05:55Okay. R eighty.

1:05:56That's your local that's your local paving. Oh yeah, here

1:05:59we go.

1:06:05This is time over to you. Good afternoon. Um so this is PIPA 230012, Local Road Paving Municipal Service Taxing Unit, also known as an MSTU. My apologies I didn't introduce myself, Justin Grant, Public Infrastructure, Fiscal and Business Administration Director.

1:06:26Dive right in here. Um, quick background on paving and paving assessments. I won't go through every item on this timeline uh slide here, but uh it's notable that back in 1985, uh ordinance number eighty eighty-five oh six kind of starts to establish where the county starts doing special assessments on things like paving. Um in 2002 um you start to see the formulation uh via ordinance number zero two one seven uh starts to get into The ERU methodology that starts to form the basis of what we use today for PVAS. Then in 2013,

1:06:56uh we transitioned the billing to the tax bill. We start to take the steps that are necessary to put it on the tax bill. And so uh you get into 2015 where projects that came on uh to the board in 2016 and after transitioned into the tax bill. That's notable because prior to this you'll hear terms like anniversary billing that was used for PVAS. That was a separate billing uh practice that the county took on, mailed out billings separate from the tax bill. You can we'll walk through some challenges that are that are with the PVAS program,

1:07:26uh collections, things like that, delinquencies uh that go with that. When you get to the tax bill, that's a whole different ballgame. So here you go. The problem with the current PVAS program is it doesn't collect sufficient revenue to sustain stuff. This board has heard that a number of different times in a number of different ways, and right now that requires uh continued support support from the Road and Bridge Fund and/or other funds within the county. So three main points here. You've got a couple uh pictures of different roads. Uh but right now, PVAS doesn't contemplate uh continued maintenance under PVAS assessments.

1:07:57So that means that you can go in and you can do a road, in a lot of cases, right, FDR and things like that, full depth reclamation, and there's not a continuing maintenance program. So that same road can come back 20 years from now and need to go back into the PVAS program, the way that the program currently operates. It also doesn't provide an option to transition B-roads or build roads. So if you've heard Public Works and Brantford specifically talk about some of those items before, PVES doesn't offer an option to handle those types of things. And finally, uh

1:08:27we've we presented to this board a couple of times and public works has done a great job doing uh local road. data collection on everything we've got. When you start to tally up those numbers, it's pretty uh pretty massive, right? 1.2 billion dollars over 30 years to try and make those transitions, pay things, get into a program. So how do we assess? How do we manage that? So you've seen this slide in a number of different um separate meetings and before this board before. Um I won't get too incredibly detailed on this, but what it's basically saying is

1:08:59Rather than in and you've heard actually Brianford in some prior presentations, go through and talk about maintenance on your car, right? So going through and when you you do your oil changes, change your fluids, stay up on that, right? You prevent Larger dollar and more major maintenance later on, right? So your your average upkeep is lower in dollar and in intensity. And so you see these graphs here where in the bottom left, right? Your road starts out uh between ninety and a hundred. When you're doing that, and you can in the top right graph Illustrates where if you're spending incremental

1:09:29dollars in rejuvenation, which is at a much lower cost, you're allowed you're able to keep the life of that road longer at a greater condition at a much lower cost. Right? So when you get down into the yellows, oranges, and reds, you're spending far more dollars to do much larger projects, increasing your total cost into the road. So the successor strategy is to establish a local road paving MSTU, Municipal Service Taxing Unit. And so that's going to do a couple things, right? It's going to transition over to a millage based process. The funding becomes

1:09:59100% tax billing, provides consistent, stable source of funds. Project area is intended to be similar to what's with PVAS. And we have the option with an MSTU, work with the County Attorney's Office, to make sure that we have the options to uh exclude areas that holistically do these types of services on their own. So municipalities that exist within the county that do this, as well as certain CDDs that completely own their roads, do all their own maintenance, we would be able to exclude them from this district. So, important timeline,

1:10:30right? This is a very complex and multi-uh step process. And so we're here in the first step of that process here to make sure that we get direction from the board if they choose that this is in fact the option that they want to move forward as the vehicle to replace PVES. And so that's today, here on the 25th. The next step would be in December. And this would be where uh staff would come back and present findings to the board, really define who's in and who's out in terms of the benefiting area, and establish an MST role and an ordinance for consideration. Then

1:11:01in spring of twenty twenty three, this is where we will present additional findings to the board. And start to talk more into the minutiae, which is including. I know a lot of us will have questions on what is the rate going to be, how do we calculate that? The short answer is that is a discussion that for part of this process here would be best to be had there in the spring of 2023, as well as how do we wind down PVAS, right? Something that's been going on for 30 plus years, lots of different variations on how one might do that, right? And so we're working to go through. all those things, collect all the intricate

1:11:31data, and present a number of uh concise options for the board to consider. Then finally in summer 2023, if it's an MSTU as a part of the budget process for the next budget year and tax year, we would go through and follow the trim process and do our hearings and do that for year one. And so that would be in summer of 2023. That would allow, if the board follows this calendar here, for our first billing to be on the tax bill issued November 1st of 2023.

1:12:00So therefore, the recommended action for today is the first step in that process on the prior slide, which is to direct staff to move forward, choose the MSTU as the vehicle, if the board does that as at its pleasure, that that's the vehicle you'd like to use to replace PVAC. Yes. Make that decision today. Direct staff to prepare the necessary things. Work with the County Attorney's Office to prepare an ordinance and come back and see you in December.

1:12:26Ward members any questions?

1:12:28Madam Chairman Mariano. Make sure the public hearing.

1:12:35C D's that currently maintain the roads, of course, they'll be carved out. H Well then there's some RA some hoas as well, but um That's important because obviously those folks already pay To maintain their probes, the ones that do do it. So I just want to make sure that just to restate if you could restate that.

1:12:58Sure. Yeah. So the the intention and while it's a very complex and labor-intensive exercise, there's a number of different C D Ds throughout the county, uh, and there's a handful that we've identified that holistically own, do maintenance and own those roads and and assess their residence for that. Activity. The intention of this unit would be to exclude them from that. Now there's a number that have hybrids that you know there's not road mo you know ownership and there's certain right-of-way issues, there's some that kind of fall in the middle. We're working through a lot of those details right now, so you'll have that kind of coming for consideration

1:13:28in the spring. But yes, to succinctly answer your question, if they holistically handle all of that on their own, they assess their residents for as such, they would not be part of this district. Yeah,

1:13:36because some of

1:13:41actually allow the public on the roads, but the C D still maintain or a hundred percent um obligated, you know, to maintain their roads and their sidewalks as well. So that's obvious in I love seeing that because again it's not on the rest of the county taxpayers back. You make a choice to live there because it's being maintained and you're paying for it. You know what you're in for before you buy it. Um but uh just wanna make that statement so people that are already paying for it don't think they're gonna pay for it again.

1:14:10So the one one clarification is The intent is that those subdivisions which had county roads. But the maintenance responsibility was turned over to the HOA or C D D would well no H O You wouldn't have the you wouldn't have this scenario where H OAs not only to H O discussion.

1:14:39Back in the day. before I got here, the there were plots that They were county local roads, but the associations were tasked with maintenance responsibility. those would be in this program because those are also the people who are coming to you And saying We'd like we need to be P BAST because we can't they're not really maintaining the right-of-way. If it's

1:15:09purely private. Yeah. Those We wouldn't be maintaining their roads. They're still private roads. But if it would if it is a Like No. Aries and Moon Lake. The plats all say that they're public roads, but the county doesn't normally maintain gotcha maintain them except for extraordinary circumstances.

1:15:33But they would now be taking over those roads. Uh

1:15:36some point in the t in some point this program would Would move those into the system for for maintenance. Yes.

1:15:45Yeah, that's correct. Based on however the millage is established and these are the details that we're talking about, our intention would be to migrate B roads into county maintenance as well as look at dirt roads and other things as we come. That will depend on funding and and other things. Which will be discussed.

1:15:59Hundred percent of the roads will not be done the first year you leveu levy millage.

1:16:03I promise you. It's a big number over many years.

1:16:07Most of them in my district. I have a comment on dirt roads, but I'll save it because Commissioner Mariano will be able to do that. And I was gonna go right

1:16:13to dirt roads, so

1:16:14right on

1:16:14line. Um because it's you know for the for those that you know the C D D is obviously suffered from that makes sense. HOAs is well taken care of it. But those that are living on paved roads. compared to the ones that are on dirt roads. I would find it hard to accept that. a person on a paved road would be would not end up paying the same assessment as someone on a dirt road.

1:16:34That's what I was going to say. So I'm

1:16:36going to be looking for something where if it is a dirt road there could be an extra assessment put on it when it's done, kinda like a P V S is now. Once they're up to code from there, then it can go away. But you've got to make that separation. So

1:16:48I will I will tell you that

1:16:53The majority of county governments That's what they use PVAS for. They don't call it PVAS, but it but the special assessment pro process is used. to take a dirt road and make it asphalt and bring it into the county system. That's that's how And and

1:17:12maybe we need to still do that, but it but again it wouldn't be as much money. for them to to convert the dirt road 'cause they're gonna be paying this as well. So there may be a like a cut of Let's say the dollar I'll just say uh it's a hundred dollars a year. For a dirt road, it may be you make that a $200.

1:17:30Sure.

1:17:30Compared to the other. What have been them just rot throwing out numbers?

1:17:33Certainly. And as we've kind of said, you're right, that there's a reason why there's a number of different meetings and a lot of staff time built into this. Um, you know, County Attorney did an excellent job describing the complexities of our road system and all the different dedications that have happened over the last thirty, forty years. There's a lot of trying to Rectify that, analyze that, bring all that in. The other thing with PVAS, like you're talking about, we'll present some different options. Um, one of the main functions with PVAS that creates some of those issues is the funding issue, which is all those different designations in

1:18:03terms of discounts and things like that that have created significant negative cash flow, which is why we're standing here today, among a number of other reasons. reasons and so um with an MSTU I know it's been talked before right when you get out of an MSBU which is special benefit flat things and you get into more of a taxable assessment the intention fundamentally is to have a more uniform system. We'll certainly try and make sure we we analyze all those situations you're mentioning though.

1:18:27And and I tell you just I give you a lot of credit for bringing this forward. I mean you've done some great work for this county to bringing very complex things together to make it happen. So Thank you, sir. You know when we did that Highlands P VAS, we had like different categories of roads that the people that had the nice road didn't have to pay as much, et cetera. And I think if you set that up, you can see that. Once they're on the dirt road and they get it paved, then they can go into the let's say uh the regular MS Uh to you. And once that's done. So you might have to separate out the right-of-way. section A for dirt

1:18:57roads and then section B for paved roads. That that may be what it takes.

1:19:02So the only thing I would say is is just prepare the board for the complexity and the elements that are associated with that. We'll work closely with the county attorney's office. When you get into the TU, the idea here was to be able to have a and and certainly not resisting what you're saying, those are all great points. Um you're looking at a broad Broad umbrella that's gonna cover thing, exclude large, you know, polygons and things like that, rather than getting into a BU type test that we've discussed before that gets into individual property assessments directly off of a road, which

1:19:32is kinda like what PVAS does in some of those smaller districts now.

1:19:35Well you can call call it whatever you want, just have a system to Um have people on a paid road Okay. Pay to get pay more.

1:19:50You're going to set it unless you set separate unless you create separate MSTUs. Well maybe

1:19:56that's what we

1:19:56do. The millage is the millage. So whatever you levy is going to be the millage for the entire MSTU. Okay.

1:20:03Well

1:20:03that's like fire.

1:20:04And Madam Chair. Yeah. Um and that's a perfect example because if you have someone with a $300,000 home living on a paved road and then you have someone in a twenty or eighty thousand dollar mobile home living on a dirt road, the dirt road is gonna pay less, but they are gonna be m cost more. It's gonna cost them more to upgrade their roads. And then what if there are private roads out there that want to keep their dirt roads?

1:20:32If they're private, we're not touching them. Okay. But yeah, so private roads would be excluded from this.

1:20:38Madam Chairman M one more thought too. Something for bigger picture as far as we're going, and I know we've looked at it with doing concrete, but the ash that we have at at the plant. As we're gonna do these dirt roads to cut down the cost and make it more affordable and provide a longer term benefit for the county for those giant piles that if we can eliminate, I think the ash should be trying to looked at wherever we can, 'cause obviously got at the right uh sea level for for it to work. But I think we should be looking at incorporating that as well.

1:21:06I also um saw somewhere I think at the NACO conference, some I think it was that people were taking I'm sorry, glass. And not putting glass in the road, but really Putting it back to sand or whatever and adding that to road base.

1:21:19Yeah, I think that'll come down to project specific um ideas on on how to stretch those dollars and resources, but absolutely appreciate the input.

1:21:27Yeah. Because when

1:21:31I was gonna say with the ash it actually reduced it to a fraction of the cost of the roads. Yep.

1:21:36That's why we're doing it. Um I am really glad this is coming forward. Uh we heard someone today talking about potholes. And um they said their road is good because they have potholes. But that pothole's only is good 'til the next big wash rain and then the then it pops out. And it's super costly for the taxpayers to keep coming back in. And put fix in your potholes. So Um I'm really glad that we're bringing this. I I I I wish we had gotten it done with all these commissioners

1:22:06because we're gonna have two new commissioners and you know they haven't been through the pain of what we go through when we go through a P BAS project. They'll give them a chance.

1:22:18Of course, also um we have that um the challenge, and I'm sure we can do it, is if um, for example My neighborhood, Aristida, just is is going through the PVAS. Um program and we have some folks here who just had a cul-de-sac Um go through. And There will be a way, this is kind of for the public, there will be a way that you will be assimilated into the new program so you won't be paying

1:22:48twice and um And you're your cost will be kind of be switched to the new the new one. So we'll have this little buffer time. Um Second. All in favor. Aye. I'm so glad. I wish it was all done already. Okay.

1:23:09Any closed.