CHAMPAIGN — City council members on Tuesday night said they were generally pleased with how a storm water utility fee is developing, and City Manager Steve Carter said it will be a key revenue source to make up for lost time.

"The city's 150 years old," Carter said. "We've been doing this (significant storm water management projects) for maybe 30 years, so there's a lot of work out there that hasn't been done."

The city has an $80 million list of backlogged storm water drainage improvements. And with the council approving a massive project to help with flooding in the John Street area and along a segment of the Boneyard Creek last year, there is not much money left.

Without the fee, which public works director Dennis Schmidt said would not be billed to property owners for at least the next year or more, it would be "probably 20 years before city could do another (storm water) capital project."

City officials are hoping to use the fee to generate new revenue to deal with necessary improvements along the Phinney Branch and the Boneyard Creek north of University Avenue, which are among the projects that have been on a to-do list for decades.

Currently, sales and property taxes fund those types of improvements, but there is not enough money to go around with those revenue streams also paying for general city operations. The fee, which would cost homeowners between $60 and $85 annually, would effectively free up at least $1.7 million in the city's general operating fund.

Council member Deborah Frank Feinen said she wants to make sure that the money is used to pay for storm water improvements and not other city expenses.

"How we structure this is ultimately very important, at least to me," she said. "I don't want it to become a bait-and-switch."

Council member Tom Bruno said the city should also look at built-in incentives to "use the storm water fee as a leverage item to try and get people to behave in a way that's good for the community."

Those incentives likely will be discussed before city administrators bring a billing plan back to the council this summer.

"We want people to deal with their own rainwater before it gets to your neighbors lot or a city street," Bruno said.

Audience members, including former city council member Gina Jackson, were generally supportive of the fee on Tuesday. She said improved storm water drainage will help many homeowners get their properties out of the flood plain, consequently raising their property values and lowering their flood insurance costs.

"The next reach of the Boneyard, north of University, besides those folks that are right next to the channel," is one of those projects that will help, Jackson said. "It is very, very important to people's livelihoods."