COEUR d'ALENE - The city of Coeur d'Alene is looking to hire a consultant to help get its stormwater utility fee back up and running.

The consultant, FCS Group, would earn $62,800 to do a stormwater analysis and rate study. The city's goal is getting a new ordinance on the books so it can go back to collecting a utility fee to fund its stormwater program that helps keep Lake Coeur d'Alene clean.

"We want to do this as quickly as possible but make sure it goes through the proper public process," said Dan Gookin, councilmember, on hiring the financial and management consulting firm out of Renton, Wash. "It's definitely something that needs to be done."

FCS worked with the city before it adopted its stormwater utility ordinance in 2004.

Officials said the group is experienced with Coeur d'Alene, its stormwater system, other municipal ordinances and the recent Idaho court ruling to best craft a new ordinance.

"They did what they were asked to do and they did an excellent job," said Mike Gridley, city attorney.

The group helped form an ad hoc committee and generated community support before the city crafted its original ordinance, which was the first of its kind in Idaho.

But the city suspended collecting the fee this year in light of an Idaho Supreme Court decision that ruled a similar utility fee in Lewiston, which modeled its ordinance after Coeur d'Alene's, was more of a tax, and therefore unconstitutional.

The city suspended collection and repealed the ordinance as a precautionary move.

To satisfy the Supreme Court's requirements, the new ordinance would have to clarify that the charge is a utility fee.

Fees are scaled to usage, not a flat rate like a tax, so part of the challenge will be how to determine how much stormwater individual properties are generating and what services they're using, Gridley said.

Should a new ordinance be proposed, it would have to be adopted by the City Council and pass through the public hearing process.

"We have to cover it one way or the other," said Deanna Goodlander, councilwoman. "And taxes would be a substantial increase over using a utility."

To cover the permit requirements without the fee, the city's financial department said it would dip into its general fund, would move the levy rate, and a $170,000 homeowner would pay an $80 increase in taxes instead of $48 in fees.

The stormwater fee costs homeowners $4 a month when it was active, and more for commercial properties based on size.

It funds the department's $1.3 million budget, and pays for the upkeep and repair of 150 miles of stormwater pipe that connects underground to Lake Coeur d'Alene or the Spokane River. The system also prevents city streets from flooding, and the department funds the city's leaf pickup program every autumn.

The fee was also implemented in response to The Clean Water Act of 1972, as amended in 1987, which requires stormwater discharges to surface waters to comply with a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit.

Lewiston City Attorney Jamie Shropshire said Lewiston is refunding $1.2 million to residents who paid into the program for the roughly 20 months it was active. She said the city hasn't made a decision whether to create another ordinance that would clarify it is a utility fee.