Water bill surprises some in Marinette

MARINETTE -  

Some Marinette residents got a surprise when they reached into their mailboxes this month.

It was a utility bill from Marinette Water Utility - which isn't out of the ordinary.

But it's what the bill was for that has some people upset, like Don Gamelin.  He thought someone was playing a joke on him.

"I thought it was some kind of April Fool's joke in February," said Gamelin, a ship fitter at Marinette Marine Corporation.

Well, it's not April and it's no joke.

The City of Marinette is now collecting a fee for fire protection and storm sewers on vacant lots.

Gamelin will now have to pay more than $13 for each of his two vacant lots, each month. That means he's out more than $320 dollars a year along with the $200 he already pays in property taxes on the empty lots.

"I got to pay for fire protection, storm water run off on a vacant lot - when I never paid it before, because I pay property tax on it," said Gamelin.

The charge makes up the majority of the bill and is used to ensure the water mains work when called upon to fight fires.  It’s determined by the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin, the state’s utility regulatory agency.

Before 2004, Marinette's fire protection fee was paid fully through property taxes.

But starting in 2004, the city paid half of the charge through property taxes with the other half billed to customers.

That plan was phased out over five years.

City water officials say the water utility now has a new system to allow it to direct charge for the fees.

In total, 500 new bills with the fire protection fee were mailed out to some Marinette residents, like Gamelin. But water utility officials say their hands are tied when it comes to issuing the fees.

"Our goal was not so much this vacant property, these vacant lots, it was the property with improvements on it...(the vacant lots were) sort of collateral damage," said Tim Peterson, the city’s utility manager.

Peterson says the hope was to distribute the cost of the fire protection charge throughout the community by including all parcels of land.

State law allows a municipality to charge non-customers, or people with private wells, to recover the costs of fire protection.

The Public Service Commission of Wisconsin says if that happens, all pieces of land - including undeveloped land - must be charged to avoid discrimination.

"The costs are allocated out, accordingly, to the extra capacity necessary to provide fire protection services to a community. And those charges that would be applied would then be divided among all the customers in that community," said Jeff Ripp, Assistant Administrator of Water with the PSC.

"It’s something that we don't like to see, ourselves, we just don't have a lot of choice. In the case of the public fire protection, it was transferred over to us and we are required to collect the amount," said Peterson.

According to documents from the Public Service Commission, the amount Marinette needs to generate each year to meet the fire protection charge is more than $740,000 - an increase of more than $181,000 since the last rate case was completed by the PSC. 

"You know, fire protection is a community service and everybody has to pitch in," said Peterson.

Gamelin says he understands the purpose of the charge, but says there should be other options.

"They got to come up with something better than this because this, to me, is totally ridiculous," said Gamelin.

But there is one option for residents.

Peterson says if a land owner combines an undeveloped lot with an adjoining developed lot, the fees will go away.

The PSC admits there are some advantages and disadvantages to direct charge.

A benefit: organizations with a tax-exempt status contribute to the costs.

A downside: water bills do increase.