‘We’re fighting for you’: Hamilton Council angry over flood protection rate hikes
Businesses, citizens urged to appeal the rate by April 24.
The Miami Conservancy District, which provides flood protection to communities along the Stillwater, Mad and Great Miami rivers and Twin Creek with maintenance and improvements, plans to increase its annual assessments for the first time in a dozen years.
That has infuriated members of Hamilton City Council.
They want the MCD to pause for the moment — including requesting a twoyear moratorium from the Court of Common Pleas — to see what the assessment will do for the city of Hamilton, which Councilman Michael Ryan said “is trying to ruin” the pro-business environment the city’s worked on for the past dozen-plus years.
“We can’t allow this to happen,” he said, and telling the city residents, “We’re fighting for you, and we’re going to continue to fight until this is taken care of because you matter.”
They encourage residents and business owners to appeal the assessment, which can be found online at mcdwater.org/i-want-to/learn-aboutmy-assessment. They have until April 24 to file.
While the entire council, and many community leaders, support the need for the Miami Conservancy District — Hamilton was one of the founding communities — they are against the new assessments for various reasons, foremost the size of many of the small and large businesses in the city.
The Miami Conservancy District recently announced the new assessments it will levy starting in 2025 on property taxes for those within the agency’s boundaries within five counties and 22 communities along the Great Miami River and its tributaries.
Miami Conservancy District spokesperson Sarah Hippensteel Hall said in response to the council’s harsh criticisms, “We believe messaging has been consistent. We have been meeting with local stakeholders since early 2023. The Miami Conservancy District is committed to the mission of providing unfailing flood protection to protect the safety and well-being of the people and property of the Miami Valley. We have hosted public meetings, made presentations, mailed postcards, mailed letters, built webpages, and created additional meeting opportunities.
“The Miami Conservancy District will review the action taken by the Hamilton City Council, in light of the court order to proceed,” she said.
The proposed assessment increase includes a new 1% capital assessment and a 0.59% increase to the 2.19% maintenance assessment. The assessment covers costs related to the upkeep and rehabilitation of the levee and dam system. The district said it has identified about $140 million in shortterm and long-term projects needed to ensure levees, dams and channels across the region remain safe and effective.
MCD officials have said that aging infrastructure, extreme weather events and increasing rainfall are putting pressure on the regional flood protection system, which has critical maintenance, repair, rehabilitation and reinvestment needs.
The readjusted assessment was delayed a few years by a 2021 Butler County property tax appeal by former county auditor Roger Reynolds, which he lost. Hall said the annual cost to maintain the flood protection system is approximately $9 million and that delay caused an annual deficit of $3 million, which was covered by MCD’s cash reserves.
The flood protection maintenance assessment collects $6.4 million, and reserves will not sustain normal operations beyond 2025. The new maintenance rate of 2.78% is set to cover budgetary needs through 2032, generating $11.5 million a year, which will allow the district to build back up its cash reserves. Without increased revenue, Hippensteel Hall said the required minimum fund balance will not be met adding risk in the case of infrastructure failure or large event, as well as noncompliance with financial policies.
Council member Carla Fiehrer said she “would take this much more serious” if they didn’t take 12 years to put an assessment on the books, citing the MCD’s $140 million in infrastructure needs for long- and shortterm projects and maintenance.
“If you honestly believe, in 12 years, you’re not going to have this infrastructure (needs) and this is now when you’re wanting to make up for it, there’s something terribly wrong with that, and these people are not to be managing this conservancy.”
There are nearly 5,100 properties protected by the MCD that pay an assessment that was last assessed in 2012 and levied in 2013. Approximately 80% of property owners, MCD officials say, are anticipated to pay less than $250 per year for both the maintenance and capital assessment. But it’s that remaining 20% that will see increases that are five or 10 times the increase, and in the case of Spooky Nook Sports Champion Mill, about 50 times more.
Hamilton City Council is asking for a two-year moratorium on implementing what Councilman Joel Lauer called both a “money grab” by the district and essentially a tax rather than an assessment.
“I am disgusted by the absurd assessment that is being implemented by the Miami Conservancy District,” he said, calling the MCD’s board policy “fundamentally questionable.”
“It is alarming to hear that many of our businesses and citizens within the city will be impacted by this unprecedented, unwarranted and potentially devastating financial burden on our economic growth,” he said.
Ryan said things won’t change unless confronted, and that’s what they did Wednesday night, calling the assessments “unfair and unjust.”
“These assessments will be devastating to our businesses, our residents and our future redevelopment projects. Simply put, no businesses will be coming to Hamilton again if this goes through, and this is completely unacceptable, and I will not stand for it.”
He went on to say MCD “had every opportunity” to be proactive about this process, but it wasn’t, including reaching out the Hamilton City Council before filing them.
“This entire situation could have been handled better, but it wasn’t,” Ryan said. “It is so infuriating to me that it has now reached this point. MCD should be incentivizing business development in our city, not penalizing them.”
Councilman Tim Naab sponsored the council-approved resolution opposing the MCD’s recent assessment, which is known as the Appraisal of Readjustment, which some on City Council said using the 1913 flood as the basis 111 years later is antiquated and should be re-evaluated.
The MCD did have a meeting in February in Hamilton about the preliminary assessment for 2025, as well as last week in Dayton and Troy, and have planned two more next week in Hamilton. The MCD attended a 17Strong meeting in Hamilton last week.