PER CURIAM.

Plaintiffs commence these original actions in the Court of Appeals under Const. 1963, art. 9, §§ 25-34, popularly known as the Headlee Amendment. The actions were consolidated by the Court of Appeals. The Jackson City Council adopted Ordinance No. 2011.02, pursuant to which the city created a storm water utility and imposed a storm water management charge on all property owners within the city to generate revenue to pay for the services provided by the utility, which include, among others, street sweeping, catch basin cleaning, and leaf pickup and mulching. The question posed by these actions is whether the city, by shifting the method of funding certain preexisting government activities from tax revenues to a utility charge, ran afoul of § 31 of the Headlee Amendment, Const. 1963, art. 9, § 31,1 as construed and applied in Bolt v. City of Lansing, 459 Mich. 152, 587 N.W.2d 264 (1998). We answer this question in the affirmative and hold that the city's storm water management charge is a tax, the imposition of which violates the Headlee Amendment because the city did not submit Ordinance 2011.02 to a vote of the qualified electors of the city. The charge is null and void.

I

The city maintains and operates separate storm water and waste water management systems. Various state permits authorize the city to discharge storm water through its separate storm water drainage system to the Grand River, as well as other waters of the state. Historically, the city has funded the operation and maintenance of its storm water management system with money from the city's general and street funds. The money in these funds is generated through the collection of ad valorem property taxes, gasoline taxes, and vehicle registration fees. With revenue from these taxes and fees in decline, the city retained an engineering and consulting firm to study the feasibility of establishing a storm water utility for the purpose of funding storm water management through dedicated "user fees." As acknowledged by the city in its Stormwater Management Manual,

Following the completion of the feasibility study, the city's Department of Public Works requested that the city create a storm water utility "to fund the activities currently included in the General Fund Drains at Large, Leaf Pickup, Mulching, Street Cleaning and Catch Basin Maintenance in the Major and Local Street accounts." The Jackson City Council adopted Ordinance 2011.02, known as the "Storm Water Utility Ordinance," at its January 11, 2011, meeting.

Ordinance 2011.02 establishes a storm water utility to operate and maintain the city's storm water management program. The ordinance funds this program through an annual storm water system management charge imposed on each parcel of real property, including undeveloped parcels, located within the city. All revenues generated by the storm water management charge are deposited in a storm water enterprise fund and "[n]o part of the funds ... may be transferred to the general operating fund or used for any purpose other than undertaking the storm water management program, and operating and maintaining a storm water system." More specifically, the money in the enterprise fund may be used only to pay the "costs to acquire, construct, finance, operate and maintain a storm water system."

The management charge is computed using a formula developed by the engineering consultant that roughly estimates the amount of storm water runoff of each parcel. Anticipated storm water runoff is computed in terms of equivalent hydraulic area (EHA). This method of computation involves an estimation of the amount of storm water leaving each parcel of property based on the impervious and pervious surface areas of each parcel. The ordinance defines the phrase "impervious area or surface" as "a surface area which is compacted or covered with material that is resistant to or impedes permeation by water, including but not limited to, most conventionally surfaced streets, roofs, sidewalks, patios, driveways, parking lots, and any other oiled, graveled, graded, or compacted surfaces." "[P]ervious area or surface" is "all land area that is not impervious."

The EHA base unit used to compute the amount of a management charge is the square footage for the average single family residential parcel. One EHA base unit is 2,125 sq. ft. The pervious and impervious areas of residential parcels with two acres or less of surface area are not measured individually. Instead, such parcels are assigned one EHA unit and charged a flat rate established by resolution of the city council, which is billed quarterly. For all other parcels, the management charge is based on the actual measurements of the pervious and impervious areas of each individual parcel. The number of EHA units for these latter parcels is calculated by multiplying a parcel's impervious area in square feet by a runoff factor2 of 0.95 and the pervious area in square feet by a runoff factor of 0.15, adding these two areas and then dividing that total by 2,125 sq. ft. The number of EHA units is then multiplied by $2.703 to arrive at the monthly management charge.

The ordinance allows property owners to receive credits against the management charge for actions taken to reduce storm water runoff from their respective properties. At the time plaintiffs commenced these original actions, the ordinance allowed a residential property owner to receive a 50 percent credit against the charge by implementing city-approved "storm water best management practices" to capture and filter or store storm water. Such best practices include the creation of rain gardens or vegetated filter strips or the use of rain barrels or a cistern. The ordinance also allowed an owner of a non-residential property to receive a credit against the service charge of between 37.5 and 75 percent for implementing best management practices designed to control storm water peak flows through the construction and use of detention or retention ponds. Schools could receive a 25 percent "education credit" for providing students with a regular and continuing program of education concentrating on the stewardship of the state's water resources. Finally, an owner of a parcel of real property that is contiguous to the Grand River could receive a credit of up to 75 percent for directly discharging storm water into the river. After the filing of these actions, and through amendments to the ordinance adopted by the city, the city increased the amount of credit allowed for certain property owners who engage in best management practices identified by the city.

Ordinance 2011.02 creates a right to an administrative appeal, but limits the scope of that appeal to "the grounds that the impervious and/or pervious area of the property is less than estimated by the Administrator or that the credit allowable to the property is greater than that estimated by the Administrator." Additionally, the ordinance authorizes the administrator of the utility to enforce payment of the management charge by discontinuing water service to the property of a delinquent property owner, by instituting a civil action to collect any unpaid management charges, and by placing a lien against property for the unpaid charges and enforcing the lien "in the same manner as provided for the collection of taxes assessed upon such roll and the enforcement of the lien for the taxes."

The city began billing property owners for the management charge in May, 2011. Plaintiffs, who are property owners within the city, received invoices from the city for the management charges assessed against their respective properties, with their respective invoices for water service to their properties.

On December 16, 2011, plaintiff Jackson County commenced its instant Headlee Amendment enforcement action. Plaintiffs Jackson Coffee Company and Klein Brothers, LLC, commenced their enforcement action on December 28, 2011. Plaintiffs' claims for declaratory, injunctive, and monetary relief are predicated on the belief that the storm water management charge constitutes a disguised tax and, therefore, the imposition of the charge by the city violates § 31 of the Headlee Amendment because the city imposed the tax without a vote of the city's electorate.

II

Plaintiffs bear the burden of establishing the unconstitutionality of the city's storm water management charge. Adair v. Michigan, 470 Mich. 105, 111, 680 N.W.2d 386 (2004); Kenefick v. Battle Creek, 284 Mich.App. 653, 655, 774 N.W.2d 925 (2009).

Plaintiffs' enforcement actions implicate § 31 of the Headlee Amendment, 1963 Const., art. 9, § 31. An application of § 31 is triggered by the levying of a tax. Bolt, 459 Mich. at 158-159, 587 N.W.2d 264. "Section 31 prohibits units of local government from levying any new tax or increasing any existing tax above authorized rates without the approval of the unit's electorate." Durant v. Michigan, 456 Mich. 175, 183, 566 N.W.2d 272 (1997). Thus, a tax imposed without voter approval "unquestionably violates" § 31. Bolt, 459 Mich. at 158, 587 N.W.2d 264. However, a charge that is a user fee "is not affected by the Headlee Amendment." Id. at 159, 587 N.W.2d 264. "There is no bright-line test for distinguishing between a valid user fee and a tax that violates the Headlee Amendment." Id. at 160, 587 N.W.2d 264. "Generally, a fee is exchanged for a service rendered or a benefit conferred, and some reasonable relationship exists between the amount of the fee and the value of the service or benefit. A tax, on the other hand, is designed to raise revenue." Id. at 161, 587 N.W.2d 264 (quotation marks and citations omitted).

The seminal — and only — case addressing the distinction between a fee and a tax, in the context of storm water management, is our Supreme Court's decision in Bolt. In Bolt, the city of Lansing sought to limit the polluting of local rivers that resulted when heavy precipitation caused the city's combined storm water and sanitary sewer systems to overflow and discharge into those rivers combined storm water and untreated or partially treated sewage. Id. at 154-155, 587 N.W.2d 264. To this end, the city decided to separate the remaining combined storm and sanitary sewer system, at a cost of $176 million. Id. at 155, 587 N.W.2d 264. As a means to fund the costs of the sewer system separation,

A taxpayer within the city of Lansing brought suit against the city on the ground that the storm water service charge constituted a tax disguised as a user fee that violated §§ 25 and 31 of the Headlee Amendment because the tax had not been submitted to or approved by a vote of the people. Bolt, 459 Mich. at 154, 158, 587 N.W.2d 264. Our Supreme Court agreed, concluding that the storm water service charge was not a valid user fee, but, instead, was "a tax, for which approval is required by a vote of the people." Id. at 154, 587 N.W.2d 264. The Court reached this conclusion after considering a multiplicity of factors pertaining to the characteristics of fees and taxes, including the three primary criteria of a fee, which are: (1) a fee serves a regulatory purpose, (2) a fee is proportionate to the necessary costs of the service, and (3) a fee is voluntary. Id. at 161-162, 587 N.W.2d 264.

With regard to the first two criteria, the Court concluded that the storm water service charge neither served a regulatory purpose nor was proportionate to the necessary costs of the service. Rather, the Court concluded that the service charge served a revenue-raising purpose. Id. at 163-167, 587 N.W.2d 264. According to the Court, "`the "fee" is not structured to simply defray the costs of a "regulatory" activity, but rather to fund a public improvement designed to provide a long-term benefit to the city and all its citizens.'" Id. at 164, 587 N.W.2d 264, quoting Bolt v. City of Lansing, 221 Mich.App. 79, 91, 561 N.W.2d 423 (1997) (MARKMAN, J., dissenting). The Court reached this conclusion, in part, because,

For this same reason, the Court concluded that the "`revenue to be derived from the charge is clearly in excess of the direct and indirect costs of actually using the storm water system over the next thirty years and, being thus disproportionate to the costs of the services provided and the benefits rendered, constitutes a tax.'" Id. at 164, 587 N.W.2d 264, quoting Bolt, 221 Mich.App. at 91, 561 N.W.2d 423 (MARKMAN, J., dissenting).

The Court further concluded that the storm water service charge neither served a regulatory purpose nor was proportionate to the necessary costs of the service on the basis of the following two related failings of the ordinance:

In this case, the lack of correspondence between the charges and the benefits conferred demonstrates that the city has failed to differentiate any particularized benefits to property owners from the general benefits conferred on the public.

This conclusion is buttressed by the fact that the acknowledged goal of the ordinance is to address environmental concerns regarding water quality. Improved water quality in the Grand and Red Cedar Rivers and the avoidance of federal penalties for discharge violations are goals that benefit everyone in the City, not only property owners. As stated by the Court of Appeals dissent[:]

Next, the Court found that the charge lacked any element of voluntariness, which the Court found to be further evidence that the charge was a tax and not a user fee. The Court opined:

Finally, the Court found that the following factors also supported the conclusion that the storm water charge was a tax: (1) the revenue generated by the charge was to be used on that portion of the project that had been previously funded by general fund revenue; (2) the indebtedness generated by the levying of the charge could be secured by a lien on property; and (3) the charge was billed through the city assessor's office and may be sent with the December property tax statements. Id. at 168-169, 587 N.W.2d 264.

The Court closed its opinion with the following admonition:

In the present cases, the documents provided this Court reveal that the management charge serves a dual purpose. The charge furthers a regulatory purpose by financing a portion of the means by which the city protects local waterways, including the Grand River, from solid pollutants carried in storm and surface water runoff discharged from properties within the city, as required by state and federal regulations. The charge also serves a general revenue-raising purpose by shifting the funding of certain preexisting government activities from the city's declining general and street fund revenues to a charge-based method of revenue generation. This latter method of revenue generation raises revenue for general public purposes by augmenting the city's general and street funds in an amount equal to the revenue previously used to fund the activities once provided by the city's Engineering and Public Work Departments and now bundled together and assigned to the storm water utility. Because the ordinance and the management charge serve competing purposes, the question becomes which purpose outweighs the other. Id. at 165-167, 169, 587 N.W.2d 264. We conclude that the minimal regulatory purpose served by the ordinance and the related management charge is convincingly outweighed by the revenue-raising purpose of the ordinance.

Ordinance 2011.02 suffers from the same lack of a significant element of regulation as the Lansing ordinance did. Although the ordinance confers the power of regulation on the utility's administrator, the ordinance contains few provisions of regulation and no provisions that truly regulate the discharge of storm and surface water runoff, with the exception of the provision that allows for credits against the management charge for the use of city-approved storm water best management practices. Moreover, as was the case in Bolt, the ordinance fails to require either the city or the property owner to identify, monitor, and treat contaminated storm and surface water runoff and allows untreated storm water to be discharged into the Grand River. Bolt, 459 Mich. at 164-167, 587 N.W.2d 264. In these regards, the city's ordinance suffers from the same regulatory weaknesses as did the Lansing ordinance struck down as unconstitutional in Bolt.

Further, the documents generated by and on behalf of the city and provided this Court clearly show that the desire to protect the city's general and street funds from the costs of operating and maintaining the existing storm water management system constituted the most significant motivation for adopting the ordinance and management fee. As previously noted, before the adoption of the ordinance, the city paid the costs of operating and maintaining the storm water system, including the costs of street and catch basin cleaning and leaf pickup and mulching, with revenue from the city's general and street funds. In the documents supplied this Court, the city readily admits that the costs associated with maintaining the storm water system resulted in money from these funds being directed away from "other critical programs" and that budgetary pressures, including declining general fund revenue, necessitated the tapping of new sources of funding for the maintenance of the storm water system. Similarly, the storm water utility feasibility study commissioned by the city reflects that the primary purposes of the study were to devise a method of calculating a storm water management charge of sufficient amount to fund the preexisting services the city desired to delegate to the utility and to convince the city council that the imposition of the recommended management charge would not violate Bolt and the Headlee Amendment. The fact that the impetus for creating the storm water utility and for imposing the charge was the need to generate new revenue to alleviate the budgetary pressures associated with the city's declining general fund and street fund revenues, and the fact that the city's activities were previously paid for by these other funds are factors that support a conclusion that the management charge has an overriding revenue-generating purpose that outweighs the minimal regulatory purpose of the charge and, therefore, that the charge is a tax, not a utility user fee. The Headlee Amendment bars municipalities from supplementing their existing revenue streams by redefining various government activities as services and then enacting "user fees" for those services. Id. at 169, 587 N.W.2d 264.

Likewise, the lack of a correspondence between the charge imposed and any particularized benefit conferred by the charge supports a conclusion that the charge is a tax and not a utility user fee. A true fee confers a benefit upon the particular person on whom it is imposed, whereas a tax confers a benefit on the general public. Id. at 165, 587 N.W.2d 264. Although a regulatory fee may confer a benefit on both the general public and the particular individuals who pay the fee and still maintain its regulatory character, a charge is not a regulatory fee in the first instance unless it is designed to confer a particularized benefit on the property owners who must pay the fee. Id. at 165-166, 587 N.W.2d 264; USA Cash #1, Inc. v. Saginaw, 285 Mich.App. 262, 281, 776 N.W.2d 346 (2009). In the present cases, we cannot readily identify any particularized benefit the charge confers on the property owners that is not also conferred upon the general public. The city indicated in its original response to plaintiffs' complaints that the charge "assur[es] cleanliness and safety of the State's waters and watercourses." The city also indicated that the management charge enables the city to protect the public health and safety, to reduce the likelihood of flooding caused by excessive storm water runoff, to reduce the potential for land erosion, which can damage roads, bridges and other infrastructure and thereby endanger the public, and to prevent sewer overflows by providing a mechanism to collect and divert rain water runoff from the sanitary sewer system. We do not doubt that a well-maintained storm water management system provides such benefits. Nevertheless, these concerns addressed by the city's ordinance, like the environmental concerns addressed by Lansing's ordinance in Bolt, benefit not only the property owners subject to the management charge, but also everyone in the city in roughly equal measure, as well as everyone who operates a motor vehicle on a Jackson city street or roadway or across a city bridge, everyone who uses the Grand River for recreational purposes downriver from the city, and everyone in the Grand River watershed. This lack of a correspondence between the management charge and a particularized benefit conferred to the parcels supports our conclusion that the management charge is a tax. Bolt, 459 Mich. at 166, 587 N.W.2d 264.

Our conclusion regarding the proportionality of the charge further buttresses the conclusion that the management fee is a tax.

"Fees charged by a municipality must be reasonably proportionate to the direct and indirect costs of providing the service for which the fee is charged." Kircher v. City of Ypsilanti, 269 Mich.App. 224, 231-232, 712 N.W.2d 738 (2005). The fact that the fee only needs to be "reasonable proportionate" suggests that mathematic precision is not necessary in calculating the fee. Graham v. Kochville Twp., 236 Mich.App. 141, 154-155, 599 N.W.2d 793 (1999). Thus, the fee need not generate an amount equal to that required to support the services the ordinance regulates in order to survive scrutiny; however, where the revenue generated by a regulatory "fee" exceeds the cost of regulation, the "fee" is actually a tax in disguise. Westlake Transp., Inc. v. Pub. Serv. Comm., 255 Mich.App. 589, 614-615, 662 N.W.2d 784 (2003). This Court must presume the amount of the fee to be reasonable, "`unless the contrary appears upon the face of the law itself, or is established by proper evidence'...." Graham, 236 Mich.App. at 154-155, 599 N.W.2d 793, quoting Vernor v. Secretary of State, 179 Mich. 157, 168, 146 N.W. 338 (1914); see also Wheeler v. Shelby Charter Twp., 265 Mich.App. 657, 665-666, 697 N.W.2d 180 (2005).

A permissible utility service charge is one that "`reflects the actual costs of use, metered with relative precision in accordance with available technology, including some capital investment component....'" Bolt, 459 Mich. at 164-165, 587 N.W.2d 264, quoting Bolt, 221 Mich. App. at 92, 561 N.W.2d 423 (MARKMAN, J., dissenting). In the present cases, the management charge is predicated on the assumption that properties contribute to runoff, and, hence, storm sewer use, as a direct function of the size of a parcel's imperious and pervious areas. Despite this assumption, residential parcels measuring two acres or less are charged a flat rate based on the average EHA of all single family parcels, and not on the individual measurements of each parcel's impervious and pervious areas. Single family residential parcels account for 12,209 or 83 percent of the 14,743 parcels within the city. According to the city, it is cost-prohibitive to calculate the EHA units for each single family residential parcel on the basis of actual measurements of impervious and pervious areas of each parcel. In contrast, residential parcels measuring over two acres and commercial, industrial and institutional parcels of all sizes are assessed a management charge based on the individual measurements of each parcel's impervious and pervious areas. This method of apportioning the management charges among all urban properties emphasizes administrative convenience and ease of measurement and, thereby, suggests an absence of a close proportional relationship between the amount of runoff attributable to a particular parcel and the management charge, as does the fact that the method of calculating the charge fails to consider property characteristics relevant to runoff generation, such as a parcel's location in reference to storm gutters and drains and soil grade. This lack of proportionality is further demonstrated by the fact that the charge generates sufficient revenue to allow the city to maintain a working capital reserve of 25 to 30 percent of the storm water utility's total expenses. Although maintaining a capital reserve is a common practice amongst rate-based public utilities that provides a degree of fiscal stability to utilities, see 73B CJS, Public Utilities, § 64; 64 Am. Jur. 2d., Public Utilities, § 107, those reserves are funded by true user fees closely calibrated to the actual use of the service or a price paid for a commodity. The management charge at issue in these cases in not such a fee. For these reasons, the actual use of the storm water sewer system by each parcel is not accounted for with the requisite level of precision necessary to support a conclusion that the charge is proportionate to the costs of the services provided.

Finally, our conclusion that the city's management charge is a tax is bolstered by the fact that Ordinance 2011.02, like Lansing Ordinance 925, is effectively compulsory. Although Ordinance 2011.02 allows property owners to receive credits against the management charge for actions taken to reduce runoff from their respective properties, it does not guarantee all property owners will receive a 100 percent credit. Indeed, if the ordinance realistically allowed for all property owners to receive a 100 percent credit, the credit system would undermine the central purpose of the ordinance, which is to generate dedicated funding to maintain and operate the current storm water management system. The city would be left with a storm water sewer system to operate and maintain and no dedicated revenue source to fund street sweeping, catch-basin cleaning, and leaf pickup, among other activities necessary to the city's stewardship of the system. More importantly, however, this system of credits effectively mandates that property owners pay the charge assessed or spend their own funds on improvements to their respective properties, as specified by the ordinance and the city, in order to receive the benefit of any credits. In other words, property owners have no means by which to escape the financial demands of the ordinance. Additionally, the ordinance authorizes the administrator of the storm water utility to discontinue water service to any property owner delinquent in the payment of the fee, as well as to engage in various civil remedies, including the imposition of a lien and the filing of a civil action, to collect payment of past-due charges. All of these circumstances demonstrate an absence of volition. This lack of volition lends further support for our conclusion that the management charge is a tax. Bolt, 459 Mich. at 168, 587 N.W.2d 264.

III

We enter a declaratory judgment in favor of plaintiffs. The city's storm water system management charge is a tax imposed in violation of § 31 of the Headlee Amendment. The city shall cease collecting the charge and shall reimburse only plaintiffs for any charges paid to date. Bolt v. City of Lansing (On Remand), 238 Mich.App. 37, 51-60, 604 N.W.2d 745 (1999). Plaintiffs may tax their costs, including a reasonable attorney fee. Const. 1963, art. 9, § 32; Adair v. Michigan, 486 Mich. 468, 494, 785 N.W.2d 119 (2010).

MURPHY, C.J., and HOEKSTRA and OWENS, JJ., concurred.