Stormwater Contracting Issue Looms as County Council Formally Approves Fiscal 2019 Operating and Capital Budgets

County Executive Leggett, who is trying to reform how contracts for stormwater capital projects are awarded, plans to veto the council’s decision to keep the current contracting system.

The County Council failed to reach a compromise on how to award stormwater contracts to private companies Thursday as it also approved the $5.6 billion fiscal 2019 operating budget and the $4.5 billion six-year capital budget.

The council voted in a straw poll last week on the budgets, so Thursday’s formal vote on both budgets was largely predetermined. The property tax rate decreased slightly—by about two cents, to 98.14 cents per 100 of assessed value—but due to rising property assessment values the average bill for a residential homeowner will rise by about $27.

Council member Nancy Floreen voted against the capital budget because of the stormwater issue. She has made it clear over the past month that she supports Leggett’s proposal to revise the contracting method for stormwater projects so that one contractor will handle designing, building and maintaining projects instead of the current method of hiring different firms to handle each stage.

Stormwater projects paid for by the county include stream restoration, stormwater pond retrofitting and green infrastructure projects designed to reduce the amount of runoff from impervious surfaces in the county.

Currently, the county’s Department of Environmental Protection uses different contractors to design a project, build it and then maintain it. Leggett has described this process as costly and inefficient. He believes that having one contractor handle the scope of the work would be cheaper.

Click here to read the rest of the article written by Andrew Metcalf over at Bethesda Magazine