The Pensacola City Council on Aug. 14 adopted the city's annual stormwater service assessment for fiscal year 2025'026 by a 4-2 vote, keeping the assessment rate at $120.49 per equivalent stormwater unit (ESU) and approving the 2025 assessment roll.

Council members said they supported funding for stormwater management but were sharply divided over how the assessments are apportioned. Opponents said the current ESU-based categories are blunt and urged a property-by-property impervious-surface calculation; supporters said the city must preserve the program and can refine methodology through a workshop.

The assessment program, implemented in 2000, funds stormwater management services and facilities and is limited by law to those uses. The city said the rate of $120.49 per ESU is unchanged from the prior year and the assessments will generate about $5.2 million for fiscal 2025'026. Notices were mailed to newly affected properties and a public hearing was advertised in the Pensacola News Journal.

Council Member John Baer said he would not support adoption because the apportionment methodology effectively locks in the current category-based approach: "The adoption of this annual stormwater assessment resolution shall be the final adjudication of the issues presented herein, including, but not limited to, the apportionment methodology," he read from the resolution and added, "I don't think that the way we're apportioning this currently is fair to some people."

Vice President Lisonbee Patton and Council Member Breyer spoke at length about the tradeoffs. Patton said she was troubled that council concerns raised last year had not been fully addressed and suggested additional review; Breyer, who has technical experience, said a true ESU based on measured impervious area would be fairer and that a one-time detailed assessment could be justified.

Amy Lavoie, the city staff member who presented the program, said the ESU-category methodology dates to a 2009 study and is designed to apportion assessments according to the special benefit stormwater services convey to individual properties. She said moving to a parcel-by-parcel impervious-surface model would require the city to build and maintain a new dataset separate from the property-appraiser records and that a full remeasurement could cost on the order of the six-figure range. Lavoie also said that most parcels fall within the largest category and that changing the category thresholds would shift relatively few properties.

Mayor D.C. Reeves urged council not to dismantle the program, saying the funds support water-quality and infrastructure work across the city. Council President Moore said he would call for a workshop with administration and experts to review alternative methodologies if the council approved the resolution.

After discussion, the council adopted the resolution imposing the stormwater assessments and approving the roll. The vote was 4 in favor, 2 opposed (Baer and one other), allowing the assessment to be certified to the tax collector for collection.

The council president said he would coordinate with the mayor's office to schedule a workshop to explore alternative measurement and apportionment approaches ahead of next year's cycle.

Outcome and next steps: the assessment roll will be sent to the tax collector for inclusion on property tax bills; council members and staff agreed to pursue a workshop to study alternate apportionment methods and to consider whether an updated parcel-level impervious-area inventory or a reassessment process can be completed for future years.