Simplified: The City Council is looking to do a full review of all fees the city charges, from pool passes to utilities to business licenses, as part of a new effort to more consistently review and raise fees. One of the first items on the docket? Downtown public parking.
Why it matters
- Right now, the city doesn't have a process for regularly raising fees – or even regularly reviewing them. That means some fees in the city haven't been adjusted for decades.
- A new effort aims to get all city fees on a four-year review cycle, and as part of that, the city is also looking to simplify how it issues and collects fees, the guiding philosophies behind the fees and whether some fees even need to be in place.
- The initial discussion on fees started last year when the city looked at "recalibrating" its budget in anticipation of lower property tax revenue, but Finance Director Shawn Pritchett cautioned councilors in thinking raising fees could help fill budget gaps in a meaningful way.
"If we walk into this thinking that fees are somehow going to help mitigate or completely blunt some of the impacts we’ve seen from property tax growth caps, we really need to set that intent aside," Pritchett said.
Tell me more
Pritchett this week outlined the process so far for the City Council, including a review timeline that puts business fees (i.e. food licenses, fire inspection fees, industry-specific licenses) as well as public parking up for review by the end of this year.
- Councilor Jennifer Sigette asked Pritchett his plans for public engagement, to which he said the goal will be to get feedback not only from folks who live and work downtown, but also from the people who regularly use the downtown parking system.
Pritchett also laid out the overarching philosophy behind city fees – noting that some services the city provides are for the broader public benefit, while others serve more specific individual benefits.
- It's those individual beneficiaries who are more likely to see fees – whether that's paying for your individual water usage or paying a fee to the planning department for a building permit.
One of the goals of the review is also to look at the extent to which cost recovery is important, Pritchett said, as well as identifying any fees that might cost more to administer than they ultimately collect.
"Sometimes we continue to charge these fees historically, and then we don't really ask the question, well, why are they out there?" Pritchett said.
Councilor Rich Merkouris urged Pritchett and his council colleagues to find a way to write into ordinance that the city regularly reviews fees, as well as codifying some of these overarching philosophies so they don't get lost as administrations change.
What happens next?
The city will look to get feedback from stakeholders this summer and fall on both public parking fees and fees related to licenses and inspections with the planning, health and fire departments.
- Ongoing work is also underway to look at new technologies that could simplify the application and billing process for certain fees.
The goal will be to have something to bring to the council by the end of this year.
