Monroeville fighting Gateway's MS4 appeal

Monroeville is continuing to fight for its newly implemented stormwater runoff fee.

In the latest court filing, the borough asked a judge to declare the Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System fee to apply to Gateway School District.

The school district filed an appeal to its $90,000 MS4 fee with the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas in April.

Monroeville adopted an ordinance in October 2018 that established the fee, which bills property owners by calculating the property’s amount of impervious surface, such as concrete driveways and roofs.

Residents are charged $120 a year, whereas larger properties like the Monroeville Mall – with more impervious surface – are charged more. The mall, for example, owes around $200,000 per year.

There are ways to receive credits or discounts to the fee, but Gateway has decided to fight the fee in court.

According to court records, the district’s solicitor, Chelsea Dice, cited the state school code that argues school districts are exempt from “every kind of state, county, city, borough, or other taxes, as well as from all costs or expenses for paving, curbing, sidewalks, sewers, or other municipal improvements.”

Nevertheless, Gateway paid the $90,000 bill “under protest,” according to court records.

Since filing the initial complaint, other school districts, such as Cornell in Coraopolis and West Allegheny in Imperial, have joined the case as interveners. Communities in those school districts have also recently implemented MS4 fees.

Monroeville filed a response Dec. 31 through its solicitor, Bob Wratcher, which argued school districts are subject to paying such fees because they are a result of state and federal regulations, which mandate local governments to limit water pollution through various methods. Those methods, regulated by the state and federal governments, are similar to utilities — and those utilities cost money to maintain.

“(Gateway) routinely pays fees for other municipal utility services, such as water and sanitary services. The MS4 Fee is not a tax or assessment ‘for paving, curbing, sidewalks, sewers or other municipal improvements,’” wrote Wratcher.

Wratcher further argued the MS4 fee amounts to “significantly less than 1%” of the district’s entire budget, which in the 2019-20 school year reached $77.3 million.

Neither Wratcher nor Dice responded to requests for comment.

Gateway is not the only large property owner in Monroeville that is fighting the fee in court. CBL Properties, a Chattanooga, Tenn.-based company, filed suit against its $200,000 MS4 bill in May.

In a 600-page complaint, the company asked a judge to invalidate the MS4 bill entirely because the fees were not calculated correctly and that its application for receiving fee credits and discounts were improperly applied.

In the mall’s case, court records indicate Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas Judge Robert Colville ordered the parties to meet for a status conference scheduled for July 30. It is unclear if the conference occurred.

Stephen Matzura of McNees Wallace & Nurick in Harrisburg, the mall’s attorney, declined to comment.