The annual payment for the Capital Assessment will not be the same dollar amount year after year. 
Year one will be lower because the full capital assessment amount ($217.7 million) is being paid off in equal 40-year payments, but the first year interest is on only what has been borrowed ($80 million). Please watch a recording of our most recent webinar where we explain this in more detail. 
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Each year, homeowners will experience a slight change in the annual amount due to the equal capital assessment payments, which remain the same year-to-year, but the interest amount will decrease as the assessment balance is reduced. This leads to the highest annual payment in year two and the lowest annual payment in year 40.

To fund the Four Lakes Dams and Lakes Restoration projects through the middle of 2026, FLTF secured an $80 million bond at a 4.94% net interest rate over the term of the bond issue. This is the first series of bonds to be issued.

In 2026, FLTF will use the remainder of the State of Michigan funds before their expiration in September 2026. We will secure the second series of bonds in the summer of 2026 to fund the remainder of the project.

​The Capital Special Assessment will appear on your winter 2025 tax bill and will include 5.94% interest. The additional one percent is legally allowed to be added to cover the deficit created from property owners paying off the assessment during the term of the bond. 

As kids, some of us might remember the story of "Rip Van Winkle" who falls deeply asleep in the Catskill Mountains, awaking 20 years later having missed the American Revolution. Four Lakes Task Force (FLTF) occasionally will receive questions along the lines of “what’s going on with those lakes? and what did I hear about an assessment?”