Laramie council debates caps and tiers for stormwater utility; staff asked to return with multifamily and high‑bill data

The Laramie City Council spent the bulk of its Oct. 14 work session reviewing proposed revisions to the surface‑water utility rate structure, including caps for high nonresidential bills, possible residential tiers and tradeoffs between capital investment and maintenance.

Consultant Aaron Murray of WSP and city staff presented billing distributions and modeled scenarios. They showed that single‑family residential caps (examples tested: $30 and $50 per month) would reduce annual revenue by less than 1 percent, while nonresidential caps have much larger effects because a small number of large parcels account for substantial revenue at the high end of the billing distribution. "You can see the impact is less than 1% for either of those caps $50 or $30 — not a big impact to revenue," Murray told council regarding single‑family caps.

The presentation used examples to show the range of revenue impacts from nonresidential caps. In one example a $170 monthly cap would reduce revenue from the highest‑billed parcel group from about $1.5 million to roughly $375,000, a reduction that lowered total modeled annual utility revenue by about 36 percent in that scenario. WSP modeled additional options (for illustration) at $200, $300, $400 and $500 monthly caps and reported progressively smaller revenue reductions at higher caps. The consultants said the capital program would have to be reprioritized if the city adopted a cap that materially reduced revenue: many large, multi‑year projects would be deferred or would require grant funding or a dedicated capital tax to proceed.

Staff and the consultant also summarized the capital‑program tradeoffs. Under the city’s current 10‑year capital plan, about $43 million of investment is planned; in a modeled 15‑year scenario with a $200‑style cap the total available capital declined to about $31 million — a 28 percent reduction — and the program would shift toward smaller neighborhood projects instead of large system capacity upgrades. City staff said that large projects such as upstream/downstream improvements associated with Labonte Park (discussed as a North Laramie priority) would likely be moved into grant or specific‑purpose tax funding under a constrained revenue scenario.

Councilors debated policy options and fairness considerations. Some councilors said a hard cap for business bills would be politically easier to explain; others warned a cap would slow progress on capacity‑increasing capital projects, extend construction timelines and likely increase long‑term costs due to inflation. Several councilors and staff noted that the city already maintains a credit program that can reduce bills (up to 50% under current rules) for nonresidential properties that install qualifying on‑site retention or treatment, but staff and the consultant cautioned that industry practice generally treats caps and credit programs as alternative approaches rather than combining both: "If you're capping them, there's not a credit program," a city staff member summarized in the discussion of best practices.

The council asked staff to return at the Nov. 12 work session with targeted follow‑up materials: (1) an analysis focused on multifamily affordable housing (mobile home parks and larger complexes identified as affordable units) and how caps would affect those properties, (2) modeling of a $100 monthly cap scenario, and (3) a list of parcels with current bills in the roughly $200–$1,000 per month range plus a list of any parcels that had applied for credits or appeals. City staff reiterated they are not recommending a residential tiering change for single‑family parcels at this time and encouraged council focus on nonresidential options because nonresidential bills drive the capital funding capacity.

Several members of the public and representatives of local and state agencies addressed council during public comment. Speakers noted both support for addressing stormwater funding and concerns about the scale of bills for some businesses and agencies; the Wyoming Department of Transportation representative said YDOT had not yet sought credits and described the monthly fee shown in modeling as significant for that agency.

Ending: Council gave staff direction on the specific datasets and scenarios to prepare for the Nov. 12 work session but did not adopt new rates or ordinances. The pause on collection tied to the council’s earlier decision remains in effect through Dec. 3, 2025, pending further council direction.