With a 4-3 vote, the Sammamish City Council narrowly passed a motion to an interim increase of the 2017 surface water management fee to 5 percent at its Oct. 18 regular meeting at City Hall.

Mayor Don Gerend and Councilmembers Kathy Huckabay, Bob Keller and Tom Odell all supported the motion, with Deputy Mayor Ramiro Valderrama and Councilmembers Tom Hornish and Christie Malchow dissenting.

The 5 percent fee increase is an additional 2.5 percent to the 2.5 percent the city of Sammamish already assumes in its 2017-18 preliminary budget, according to city finance director Aaron Antin.

Currently in the 2017-18 preliminary budget, Antin said the city was looking at about a 50-cent increase per month at the 2.5 percent surface water management fee rate, with residents paying $214 in 2016, $219 in 2017 and $225 in 2018. The 2018 ending fund balance for the stormwater management capital fund under the 2.5 percent rate would be $23,232.

The 5 percent increase bumps the monthly rate up to just under $1. Antin said the 5 percent rate would generate $115,000 in 2017 to the capital fund and $124,000 in 2018, for a total of an additional $239,000 to the ending fund balance over the biennium.

“It puts you in a better ending fund position going into the 2019 period which is beyond the current 2017-18 budget period,” Antin said. “So the question is really do you want to take that rate action earlier or do you want to defer and wait for the rate study that’s planned for 2017 to occur and do it at the later point.”

The major expenditure in the capital fund in the 2017-18 budget is the Tamarack drainage improvements project, which showed expenditures of $754,000. City revenues for the Tamarack project were $565,500, Antin said, making for a net cost of $188,500.

“That is all baked into the $23,232 scenario for a fund balance,” Antin said. “That’s all part of what the preliminary budget is showing at this time.”

City Manager Lyman Howard noted the 2.5 percent rate in the preliminary budget was “basically a placeholder just to keep us even.”

“The additional 2.5 percent essentially is a jump to get ahead of the rate study,” Howard said. “We know, based on work programs that council has discussed, that there will be at least a 2.5 percent increase in all likelihood for next year that will come out of the rate study.”

In explaining why he would support the motion, Gerend noted the net loss of $188,500 presumed for the Tamarack project and added the city wasn’t confident about raising the amount of necessary revenue for the Tamarack project from citizens.

“In my mind, I am convinced that the city has to step up on Tamarack like we stepped up on Inglewood,” Gerend said, referring to previous measures taken by the city for the Inglewood neighborhood. “So even though we’re not addressing Tamarack right now, I would like to see a bigger reserve in the capital funds than $23,000 at the end of 2018.”