The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Mentor leaders eyeing options for street light funding
Improvements now paid for by property tax assessment
The Mentor administration is looking into alternate funding methods for the city’s street lighting program.
That is at the direction of some City Council members who recently raised the matter while considering the annual electric street lighting assessment legislation.
Supplying street lighting has always been paid for by the residents who benefit through a special assessment on their property tax bill.
The money is used to pay FirstEnergy for the cost of the lease on the light fixtures as well as the electricity. The rate has remained at $1.20 per $1,000 of assessed property value for several years, officials said.
This year’s aggregate assessment is more than $1.5 million. The remainder of the cost of the improvements is paid out of the city’s general fund, which provides about $50,000 annually.
“Per the (Ohio Revised Code), the city can assess no more than 98 percent of the total cost incurred for street lighting, and none of the cost of lighting intersections,” Mentor Finance Director
David Malinowski said.
Ward 4 Councilman John Krueger asked whether any other ways of assessing residents had been explored.
“I know it’s based on the assessed valuation, but a $200,000 home doesn’t get any more light with a street light in front of it than a $500,000 home,” he said. “I don’t see why that person has to pay just that much more for having a streetlight in front of him.”
City Manager Ken Filipiak called it a great question. “It’s just the policy that the city adopted decades and decades ago,” he said. “We would be happy to, if council’s inclined to do so, look at some different options and provide you with a few to consider.”
Krueger suggested potentially dividing the cost equally among the number of dwellings or structures in the city.
Councilwoman at large Janet Dowling concurred with Krueger.
“A number of years ago, we tried a petition on our street to get street lights, and the valuations between the houses are so disparate that people wouldn’t sign the petition for exactly that reason,” she said. “The same light ... shined right there on the house across the street and they were paying over double for the assessment, so I agree, it’s time. Try to come up with a more fair way.”
Filipiak said there have been a “few” complaints from the public about the fairness of property taxes as the basis for funding over the years.
“It is a fundamental argument made regarding many public services,” he said. “For example, people with higher-value houses don’t necessarily use the library more or the school system more, yet they pay a disproportionate amount.”
He noted that the city has requested a plan from FirstEnergy to convert all street lighting fixtures to LED.
“This will have a payback on the cost of the lights of about three years after installation, after which the total cost to residents will be reduced because of energy savings,” he said.
FirstEnergy is still working on a timeline to install the LED lights, said spokesman Mark Durbin.