Greetings all.
I am interested in your position on fees for service. In Brainerd, staff proposed fee increases for Building, Planning and Fire Department related permits. Many Planning Department fees have not been updated in years (e.g. a sign permit is $10, a preliminary plat fee is $50 plus $2/lot and a final plat fee is $10). At its last meeting the City Council denied the fee increases. The opinion of some of the City Council is that there should no fees at all. The position being that the public should not have to pay for a service that city staff is already being paid to provide.
I understand we can charge a fee that is commensurate with the service provided. However, I am interested in reasons to justify charging fees for services.
Thank you for any insights you are willing to provide.
Mark Ostgarden AICP
Why charge fees? The public wants their employees to adequately regulate developments, including signs, so that they are an asset to the community and do not detract from general livability. The problem is that the public does not realize what it costs to adequately regulate (nor do most community development directors). Therefore, the taxpayers do not give you enough money (taxes) to do those activities they want you to undertake. Therefore, if you are going to meet the expectations of the public, you are going to have to make the developer and sign companies pay for your services.
I became keenly aware of just what planning services cost when I retired from the public sector and worked in the private sector for a few years. I soon found that there was no way I could spend as much time on a project while working in the private sector as I could while working for a city because, as a consultant, we always had to bid so low to get the work. We also had to bill our client when we were just “thinking” about aspects of the work in their communities because we couldn’t give our work away for free.
I don’t believe that planning departments come anywhere close to covering the costs of a CUP, variance, or sign permit with the fees that most charge. By the way, at the end of my career, I had to represent a developer in his battle for a rezoning in a community that I once worked for. The planning report that used to be one page long (I just filled in some check marks) when I first started, became more than 20 pages in length BECAUSE of the computer. The amount of work that goes into a planning report nowadays is many times what it once was. A little cut and paste here and there adds up to a lot of money. Somebody has to pay the bill.
Fees!
We are in the process of keeping track of the time and money we spend on each petition before the plan commission and appeals board. Every minute we spend on it.
After a couple of months, it appears that we are undercharging by 50-150%.
We will use this information to propose an increase to the fees.
The reason I use to explain the need to collect fees is pretty simple, if you don’t pay the cost for the services you are receiving, then everybody else in the community is subsidizing you. That part they don’t mind. Then I remind them that means they are subsidizing everybody else coming through the system.
Good luck!