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Council adopts FY 2025–26 millage and utility rate changes, hears questions about lake-cleanup funding
Summary
St. Clair Shores adopted the fiscal 2025–26 millage rates and separate water, sanitary sewer and stormwater user rates after a public hearing; residents asked for more detail on the Lake St. Clair Clean Water Initiative funding and how the city spends storm/sewer millage proceeds.
The City Council adopted fiscal year 2025–26 millage rates and approved updates to utility-rate ordinances for water, sanitary sewer and stormwater after a public hearing.
During public comment resident Mike Guto urged the city to continue leadership on lake cleanup and requested clearer information about the Lake St. Clair Clean Water Initiative and how tax proceeds and grants will be used to address shoreline muck and sewage overflows. Finance and public works staff responded with background: the Lake St. Clair millage is a long-running, voter-approved levy used to pay bonds and fund projects to reduce combined sewage overflows; a portion of the bond schedule runs through 2030 (some bonds through 2031), and the city pursues grant matches where possible. Staff said the current levy generates roughly $3.4 million per year for the city’s share of the program and that specific projects must be authorized and presented to council before spending.
Council also held and closed the public hearing on the FY25–26 budget and then voted on the millage resolution. Several council motions and ordinance votes followed:
- Millage rates: Council approved the FY25–26 millage rates (overall rollback calculations and minor corrections were discussed during roll-call). Councilmember Rusey identified minor numeric errors in the published table that were corrected before the final vote.
- Water rates: Council adopted an amendment to the water-rate ordinance. The council approved a recommended increase that includes the pass-through of a Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) wholesale increase and local capital needs; staff said the recommended increase would add about $3.89/month (or about $11.67 per quarter) to a typical residential bill.
- Sanitary sewer rates: Council approved the sewer-rate ordinance amendments, which separate sanitary rates from water in ordinance language and set the commodity and fixed charges for FY25–26. Staff noted that a large portion of the sewer cost is the regional sanitary authority (Sani-Macomb or GLWA) charges the city pays to treat wastewater.
- Stormwater/user charge: Council set the stormwater user charge for FY25–26 based on impervious-area methodology required after a prior lawsuit; the FY26 storm program budget was explained and includes internal charges for city right-of-way work, county/state allocations and capital projects such as pump-station upgrades.
Councilmembers stressed the long-term pressure on rates from regional wholesale suppliers, aging infrastructure and declining per-household water use. Councilmember Vitale and others noted GLWA’s multi-year capital needs and suggested coordinated state-level advocacy might be required to address structural rate pressures.
All rate and millage measures passed on the council’s roll-call votes (most measures passed unanimously; votes recorded on the agenda were 7–0 for several items). Staff said they will post the final ordinance language and corrected millage table and will follow up with residents requesting details about lake-cleanup funds and rate calculations.
Votes and action: Millage and utility rate ordinances were adopted as presented (roll-call tallies recorded in the minutes; many votes were unanimous).
