COW 2018-09-10 Item 3B - Interlocal Agreement - Transfer of Surface Water Billing to King County

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City of Tukwila Allan Ekberg, Mayor INFORMATIONAL MEMORANDUM TO: Finance Committee FROM: Peggy McCarthy, Finance Director BY: Richard Takechi CC: Mayor Ekberg DATE: August 29, 2018 SUBJECT: Transferring Surface Water Billings to King County ISSUE The Council is being asked to approve an interagency agreement with King County authorizing the County to bill Tukwila property owners for the City's surface water services beginning January 1, 2019. The City directly bills each property owner in January and July for the surface water charges. King County provides a similar service and would include the surface water charges on their property tax statements. BACKGROUND The Storm and Surface Water Utility was created per Ordinance 1523 and Ordinance 1549, effective on 1/1/1990, set the rate classifications and rates for the Storm and Surface Water Utility. The current fees are approved by the biennial Public Works Fee Schedule. DISCUSSION The City's Finance Department assumed the billing and receipting process of all the storm and surface water bills. In addition, Finance maintains each customer's account, which is currently 5,286 accounts. Billing maintenance includes ownership changes; mailing/site address and contact information changes; changes in rate classifications; and area changes, due to short plats, consolidations, and boundary line adjustments. Finance and other departments, including Public Works and the Mayor's Office, also field questions and/or complaints from the public regarding the bills and the Surface Water Utility in general. The entire process of billing, receipting, and maintaining the customer accounts, and interacting with the public takes significant resources and time for the City. Transferring the billings and receipting to King County will allow City personnel to devote time and resources to other duties. King County processes the surface water billings for 17 entities, including the cities of Bothell, Burien, Covington, Federal Way, Kirkland, Maple Valley, SeaTac, and Woodinville. If the City approves the utility billing transfer to King County, there will be different rules to follow. The County requires a file in their format prior to year-end 2018 to bill the taxpayers for 2019. The file will include the parcel #, area, rate codes, and billing amounts. This file will be submitted each year to the County for the following year's billing. Thus, the City will still need to maintain parcel information, which is currently done in the Parcel Manager module in the Eden accounting software. The City would no longer maintain ownership changes or mailing/site address and contact information changes. 19