City raids wastewater fund, creates secret tax

by: McGuffey

Tue Jun 23, 2009 at 22:01:45 PM MDT

Denver homeowners are taxed for our wastewater runoff. The money is supposed to be used for maintaining storm drains. But Mayor Hickenlooper is using these tax dollars to pay for almost everything except the wastewater system.

How can we trust the city to tell us what budget cuts need to be made when they are using tricky accounting like this?

As money got tighter in recent years, city officials started dipping into the fund to help pay for such services as emergency snow removal and street repair. Over the past three years, in fact, nearly $29 million has been pulled from the fund to "reimburse" other agencies within Public Works, such as Street Maintenance. Another $9 million has paid for sweeping streets and paving alleyways. And $14.6 million went to buy land that Public Works plans to use for a new general facility; in March, $27.9 million was taken from the fund for the design and construction of a new campus with state-of-the-art offices, warehouses and maintenance garages for every Public Works agency but Wastewater.

This regular raiding of the Storm Drainage Enterprise Fund has occurred without the official approval of Denver City Council or city residents, leading some critics to call the practice a secret tax on property owners. And last week, the Denver Auditor's Office moved up its audit of this enterprise fund.

Cox, who lets her mortgage company handle her property taxes, doesn't pay much attention to the Stormwater Utility fee; as a lifelong Denver resident, she understands the importance of bringing the city's sewer system into the 21st century. Even so, she says, "If I'm going to pay more taxes, I'd like to know where the money is going. I don't think they should tell you that it's being used for the storm drains and then use it for something else."

Read it all at Westword.