By LYNETTE SOWELL
Cove Leader-Press
Copperas Cove residents and businesses with City of Copperas Cove water utility accounts should be on the lookout for a transportation utility fee that could begin as soon as Jan. 1, 2026.
At the July 14 city council workshop, the agenda included renewed discussion of that fee.
This would add a monthly charge to city utility customer accounts, both residential and commercial. The revenue from this fee would go toward funding city street repairs and maintenance. The amount of the fee assessed would be based on something called “single-family equivalents,” or SFEs, said Scott Osburn, Director of Public Works.
“Transportation utility fees have been established, proven, and they are equitable based on the methodology of generating additional resources and assigning that cost, where that demand is found,” Osburn told the council. “It’s an equitable analysis that allocates the true cost of what it takes to maintain the city’s 168 centerline miles of roadways that people use throughout their days and to come and go and live their life.”
The monthly amount is based on the relative amount of vehicle traffic generated over city roadways.
Non-residential users will be banded into five categories, with a cap of $2,500 per month for the highest users. The fee aims to improve street conditions, with a goal of achieving a PCI of 70 by 2032. The council agreed to propose and discuss a single-family equivalent fee at $10 monthly and establish a $2,500 cap for non-residential users.
Currently, the city funds its street repairs and maintenance through ¼-cent of the city’s sales tax revenue, as approved via Copperas Cove voters in 2023. The street maintenance fund is separate from the city’s general fund, like the water and sewer fund, drainage fund, and solid waste fund, which operate as their own funding sources and not via property tax dollars like the general fund.
Altogether, the city has 158 centerline miles of roadways to maintain, and the pavement assessment study conducted in 2022 showed that more than 70 percent were assessed as fair, poor, and failed, with 35.6 percent of the roadways receiving a “poor” designation.
Osburn said that a $10 per single-family equivalent monthly fee would generate approximately $4 million annually that could be used on city street repairs and maintenance.
A copy of the draft can be viewed here: https://destinyhosted.com/coppedocs/2025/CCW/20250715_2249/12997%5FTransportation%5FUtility%5FFee%5FDraft%5FOrdinance%5Fv.2025%5F0624.pdf
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