The City of Salem, Massachusetts, is seeking a qualified consulting firm with technical expertise to provide professional consulting services conducting a Stormwater Utility Study (the “Study”). This Study shall include consideration and analysis of the City’s historical, current and projected cost and revenue mechanisms. The Study includes comparing Salem’s existing and potential stormwater cost and revenue structure with that of comparable cities and towns, which shall include Phase I MS4 permit implemented cities. The primary goal of stormwater management is to allow every drop of rain to infiltrate into the ground where it lands. For the convenience of mobility in modern society, the city has created impervious infrastructure (roads/sidewalks) that prevents rainfall from infiltrating where it lands, therefore the city maintains various stormwater infrastructure to manage the runoff from that city owned impervious infrastructure. With that as a backdrop, the city’s stormwater management system has been designed and installed to provide for clear passage on city roadways and sidewalks during regularly occurring wet weather while meeting our regulatory compliance requirements. The city stormwater infrastructure is not intended to manage runoff from directly connected impervious surfaces of private property. Currently the cost of managing the City’s stormwater infrastructure is covered through the sewer fee. The goal of the scope outlined below is to establish an independent fee structure for managing the city’s stormwater asset. The fee should include a base fee to keep roadways and sidewalks passable during wet weather, additional fees should be assessed for any directly connected impervious surface on private property. The city’s stormwater infrastructure is generally undersized to manage the current amount of directly connected impervious area. Therefore, the fee should be designed to encourage the reduction of directly connected impervious area from private property.
