Valentino v. County of TompkinsValentino v. County of Tompkins
Rose, J. Aрpeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court (Relihan, Jr., J.), entered September 7, 2006 in Tompkins County, which, among other things, granted petitioners’ application, in a combined proceeding pursuant to
Petitioner Southern Cayuga Lake Intermunicipal Water Commission (hereinafter SCLIWC) oversees the maintenance and operation of a large community water system that supplies potable water to several municipalities in Tompkins County. Respondent County of Tompkins, through its Department of Health, regulates SCLIWC and over 100 other such community wаter systems of varying size throughout the county, and imposes fees for its regulatory services. After the fee imposed upon SCLIWC increased dramatically due to the use of a new sliding scale fee schedule designed to recoup 20% of thе costs of those services in 2004, 2005 and 2006, petitioners commenced this combined
We find merit in respondents’ argument that this proceeding was not timely commenced as to the fees imposed in 2004 and 2005 because petitioners’ claims as to them were not timely interposed in a
We are unpersuaded, howеver, by respondents’ argument that their sliding scale imposes a valid fee. While there can be no doubt that respondents’ power to regulate water systems includes the authority to charge fees, those fees are restricted to the cost of the service provided to those being regulated (see City of Buffalo v Stevenson, 207 NY 258, 262-263 [1913]; Jewish Reconstructionist Synagogue of N. Shore v Incorporated Vil. of Roslyn Harbor, 40 NY2d 158, 162-163 [1976]). “[W]here a fee is properly imposed, the amount thereof must be based on rеliable factual studies and statistics and must bear a reasonable correlation to the average, assoсiated cost of the service provided” (Matter of Phillips v Town of Clifton Park Water Auth., 286 AD2d 834, 835 n [2001], lv denied 97 NY2d 613 [2002]). “Exact congruence ... is not requirеd ... so long as there exists some rational underpinning for the charges levied” (Watergate II Apts. v Buffalo Sewer Auth., 46 NY2d 52, 59 [1978] [citations omitted]).
Here, Supreme Court correctly found that respondents’ sliding scale, which is based on the population of consumers served by each of the systems being regulated, lacks the requisite relationship to respondents’ cost of providing services to SCLIWC. Briefly stated, the sliding scale was created by dividing the 111 community water systems benefitting from respondents’ services into sevеn groups based upon the size of the populations served by each such system and then allocating the total сosts to be recouped according to each group‘s midrange population. The record shows that, while an equal division of the total costs to be recouped in 2004 would yield a fee of $329 for each of the 111 systems, the sliding scale assessed fees ranging from $105 to $6,730. The avowed goal of setting different fees for the different groups was to yield а hypothetically equal cost to each of the consumers served by each system, apparently assuming that each system‘s fee would be divided equally among its population of consumers. This apportionment of costs basеd on the size of
Crew III, J.P., Peters, Mugglin and Kane, JJ., concur. Ordered that the judgment is modified, on the law, without costs, by reversing so much thereof as denied respondents’ motion for summary judgment as to the fees imposed for 2004 and 2005; motion granted to that extent and said claims dismissed; and, as so modified, affirmed.