No. HB 4015
Filed under Environment & Water.
Melbourne-Tillman Water Control District, Brevard County; Revises stormwater management user fees & annual adjustments for residential, agricultural, and commercial parcels of land.
Plain English Summary
AI-GENERATEDSince 1990, this water control district's stormwater fee was capped forever at $25 per acre for residential land, $8.50 for agricultural land, and $52.50 for commercial land. That absolute ceiling is repealed, and current 2025-2026 rates already sit at those old maximums.
Starting with the 2026-2027 fiscal year, all three fees will instead rise every year by the change in the South Region consumer price index, a federal inflation measure, so the amount charged per acre keeps climbing instead of staying fixed at today's rate.
A separate rule still blocks the fee from rising more than 10 percent above the prior year, though the act does not clearly say how that limit interacts with the new inflation adjustment.
The bill also drops an outdated notice procedure that applied only to the district's original 1990-1991 hearing, leaving the standard newspaper-publication notice, at least seven days before a hearing, as the sole requirement.
AIThe old law's absolute dollar caps on the stormwater fee, $25 per acre for residential parcels, $8.50 for agricultural parcels, and $52.50 for commercial parcels, are struck, and no comparable fixed ceiling appears anywhere in the replacement text.
AIBeginning with the 2026-2027 fiscal year, the residential, agricultural, and commercial fees are adjusted every year using the average monthly consumer price index for the South Region of the United States, published by the U.S. Department of Labor, rather than staying fixed.
AIThe act writes the county-approved 2025-2026 per-acre fees, $25 residential, $8.50 agricultural, and $52.50 commercial, directly into the special act as the starting point from which the new annual index adjustment will be calculated.
AIThe new text still bars the fee from rising more than 10 percent above the prior year's fee, but the added qualifier about the index adjustment leaves it unclear whether that limit caps the index-driven increase itself or applies separately.