Authorizes the public service commission, upon application by a municipality, to order costs for infrastructure maintenance and access to be charged to all customer classes

BILL NUMBER:S6944

Title of bill

An act in relation to authorizing the public service commission, upon application by a municipality, to order costs for infrastructure maintenance and access to be charged to all customer classes located in such municipality

Purpose or general idea of the bill

To reduce property tax liability under certain circumstances by having all water rate payers pay for the costs associated with fire hydrant infrastructure maintenance and access charged to a municipality by a private water company, public water authority or water district.

Summary of specific provisions

Section 1 authorizes a municipality, after public hearing with notice and upon affirmative resolution of the municipality, to apply to the public service commission to have the costs associated with infrastructure, maintenance and access it is charged by a private water works corporation, water system, municipal water system or water authority to be charged to all customers across all customer classes. Any savings achieved as a result to be applied to the property tax levy of the municipality in an amount equal to such savings in the following fiscal year. This section also includes definitions.

Section 2 provides for an immediate effective date.

Justification

Municipalities that separately purchase water have a line item in their budgets dedicated to fire hydrant infrastructure maintenance and access. The burden of this cost being borne by municipal tax payers and not necessarily all water rate payers. This is not the case in municipalities which own their own water systems.

Currently, the Western Nassau County Water Authority is able to charge exorbitant fire hydrant rental fees to volunteer fire departments and fire districts within the water authority's service area. This practice harms the homeowners serviced by these fire districts, who also happen to be ratepayers of the water authority's utility rates.

This bill allows for a municipality, including fire districts in Nassau County, to apply to the public service commission to have costs for hydrant maintenance and infrastructure fees distributed among all rate-payers to remediate this inequity, where applicable.

Legislative history

This is a new bill. Similar legislation has previously been signed in to law for Westchester County (S.5278-A/A.4086-A - Chapter 433 of the laws of 2013)

Fiscal implications

None.

Effective date

This act shall take effect immediately.