For a fee that will cost most homeowners a dollar or two more a month, Kerrville's stormwater utility overhaul has taken an unusually long path to City Council - nine months of workshops, a delay caused by weather, a shift in consensus mid-process, a flood that both disrupted and intensified the case for it, and, as of Tuesday's presentation, still no ordinance on the books.

How we got here *Jan. 13: Staff brought Council an initial proposal for restructuring the city's stormwater fee, telling Council that rate consultants would be brought in at a future workshop to help finalize the numbers; *Jan. 27: The item was back on the agenda, but staff announced it would slip to February - the rate consultants from NewGen Strategies and Solutions couldn't travel because of winter weather; *Feb. 10: NewGen consultant Eric Felthouse presented the city's formal Stormwater Rate Study, the first detailed look at the numbers: a $15 million backlog of stormwater projects, and three possible rate paths - simply updating the existing flat fee, billing by impervious area with a flat residential rate, or billing by impervious area with tiered residential rates; * March 10: Public Works Director David Barrera returned to walk Council through the 2020 Stormwater Master Plan, operating costs, and the three rate scenarios in more depth.

Council's consensus began shifting toward the tiered-residential option; * April 28: Barrera brought a refined version of the tiered structure - $1. 50 for the lowest tier, $2. 00 for the middle tier, $2. 50 for the highest - along with a public outreach plan and a target of bringing a formal ordinance in May; * June 16: During budget workshop discussions, City Manager Dalton Rice and staff said the stormwater fee had been deliberately left out of the draft FY2027 budget baseline so the city could finish ironing out billing calculations before bringing it forward as its own standalone ordinance - the reason the May target quietly came and went; * July 16: Kerrville's catastrophic flood; * July 24: In post-flood budget workshop discussions, staff told Council the stormwater fee structure would be coming back for formal consideration; * Sept. 8: Barrera returned with the most detailed presentation yet - and still no ordinance; Where the proposal stands now The flood didn't just delay the process; it sharpened the case for it.