Jefferson City moving forward with storm water plan

The Jefferson City Public Works and Planning Committee voted to send a storm water plan to the full council, after flooding issues across the city following heavy rains over the past year.

The city council approved a one-time supplemental appropriation of $750,000 for storm water costs. The storm water budget is typically $360,000.

“We have quantified the issue in the past as a $2 million a year, ongoing issue,” Jefferson City Public Works director Matt Morasch said. “That’s based on how large our system is, age, conditional type thing.”

The city estimates it has about $30 million worth of storm water projects backlogged.

“The issue is there is no dedicated funding for storm water other than a small amount of sales tax,” Morasch said, referring to the $360,000. “Many communities have some type of utility that is directed money right at that issue; we do not have that here and have not had that here. So as the community has developed, a lot of the issues have cropped up. Systems have a life cycle and we’re nearing the end of it in many cases.”

Morasch and his staff came up with two scenarios that were presented to the committee. The first scenario, that was the recommendation of the staff and was ultimately voted to go to the full council, involves hiring a three-person crew to work on projects.

“Our task was how most efficiently can we get pipe in the ground with a small amount of money,” Morasch said. “It comes down to adding a crew focused on that in our own street department. The majority of council sided with that.”

One councilman voted against that proposal, citing future cost burdens.

“Of course there’ll be ongoing costs for those three people and the materials but I don’t think the storm water issue is going away any time soon and so we’ll have to address that during the budget cycle,” Morasch said. “If we want some priority on storm water this is a good way to do it. If next year the priorities change certainly we can look at that but I don’t see the issue dying down any time soon.”

Morasch said the one-time funding, though not permanent, can help make a dent toward their backlog of projects.

“This is still a limited amount of funding, but we’re just trying to get the most we can out of it and be very efficient with the money so (the three-man crew) is my recommendation,” Morasch said. “There’s never enough money to do everything you want or should do. So we’re always planning and prioritizing so when we do get a little bit of extra money like this, we want to make it very efficiently implemented.”

The next step is for the plan to be presented and voted on by the full Jefferson City Council.