Benicia City Council approves revamped fee rates for services – Vallejo Times Herald

BENICIA >> Tuesdays City Council meeting covered so much ground, that the cannabis legalization discussion had to be moved to September. But there was plenty of time left for the city to get feedback on the new master fee schedule for services.

The city recently audited all the fees it charges for everything from permits to install a water heater, to building a condominium, to the police responding to a false alarm at a house.

The city had been running deficits and under-recovering for years, which is a way of saying they were spending more on services than they recouped in fees.

The overall costs for services is a macro number that takes into account labor, overhead, and anything else that requires city staff oversight.

The city estimated that only 30 percent of costs were being recovered. With the new proposed schedule, the recovery rate will be 60 percent, with a 40 percent deficit that will most likely be made up by the general fund.

But all of that translates to some fees increasing by as high as 400 percent, a hefty number that hasnt gone over well with residents and business owners.

Gina Eleccion, management analyst and a main architect of the new fee schedule, spearheaded a long study examining existing rates and eventually proposing these latest adjustments.

Some are going up, some are going down, but overall, more revenue will be generated for the city provided people actually apply for permits and not blow them off due to cost.

City Manager Lorie Tinfow defended the fee increases by saying that the citys deficits havent just meant less money coming in than going out, but they have affected the citys ability to attract staff.

Retention issues (mean that) we cannot keep up with the market for salaries and benefits, she said at Tuesdays meeting. Weve lost people. Thats why we are really doing this. We cant keep up with the growing costs.

Beyond being able to offer competitive salaries, there are also contractual pension issues that will be ongoing.

One criticism lobbed at the council from unhappy constituents was the idea that a city should run itself like a business dont pay out more than you take in.

Councilmember Alan Schwartzman has tackled this criticism on more than one occasion, but he addressed it again on Tuesday. Numbers of people say, Why dont you run the city like a business? Well, here we are looking at the cost of doing business, and were not anywhere close in some of these different departments and areas, he said, referring to the under-recovery for services. If you are in business and your costs are going up, what do you do? At some particular point you may have to raise prices.

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So council and mayor unanimously agreed that fees had to go up. The question was, by how much?

Councilmembers focused in on line items in the fee schedule, zeroing in on things like bicycle licenses to taxi permits, and whether or not they are even needed.

Other council members like Mark Hughes wanted to see the most common fees for homeowners reduced.

None of this addressed any anger some constituents had with the overall state of affairs, a few of which spoke during the public comments section of the meeting.

A realtor addressed the council and offered that if fees are too high, people might have less incentive to pull permits in the first place. She also noted that when the proper channels are followed, home improvements are officially noted and property taxes can go up, which is good for the city.

Other residents spoke out about excessive fees and overregulation in government in general.

Resident Wayne Fisher took to the podium and said he was renovating his house and he saw that some fees will be increasing by more than 300 percent. The reality is, you dont know the impact this will have, he said. We heard earlier today from people with their water bills. That was a big increase with unintended consequences. You are facing a similar situation with these increases. If you dont know what [the impact is] you shouldnt increase it. I urge the council to vote no, he said.

Others have taken to social media to decry the new fees, arguing that the permit structure wasnt examined thoroughly and that there was no examination of past permits and their individual rates.

Eleccion did indeed look at old permits and their impacts and rates, but in some cases its an apples to oranges comparison since some fees have switched from a valuation model to piecemeal. For example, if a homeowner was applying for a permit to put in a new kitchen estimated at $50,000, a flat rate wouldve be applied. With the new fee schedule, homeowners will now in some instances pay for each job involved with a project, such as new windows, a new floor, or a new water heater.

When the discussion moved back to council, the mayor asked how Benicia compares to neighboring areas and what they charge for fees.

Eleccion said that we did find ourselves much lower than those cities, though a side-by-side comparison is hard to make since all towns break their numbers down differently.

The mayor then asked what the consequences would be if the new fees were not enacted.

City Manager Lorie Tinfow said the budget would stay as-is, and the reserves would be down below 20 percent. She mentioned that some Measure C funds are unprogrammed and could be an option, and that there were other options that she could look into.

Councilmember Mark Hughes agreed to an increase in fees, but said hed like to re-examine the higher permit fees for the things homeowners will most often need, like new water heaters, roofs, or furnaces.

Schwartzman concurred and said it was a fact of life that prices have to be raised at times. Were trying to run a city here, and everybody in this room counts on services. When the costs go up, what do we do? If we dont have enough money to cover it weve got to get it from some place. We can raise taxes or we can raise fees. We dont have a choice.

Cutting services is an option, he said, but no one wants to do that.

Each councilmember had quibbles with particular fees, but it was determined that they could be changed on down the line after the fees are adopted.

Ultimately, the fee increases were approved, with some reductions in proposed permit charges for new water heaters, furnaces, windows, kitchens, and bathrooms.

Staff will come back later with recommendations for more adjustments, the mayor said.

We need to hold ourselves to the promise of being more effective and efficient, said Patterson. The alternative is really reducing services, and none of us want to do that.

So buckle up, Benicia: fees are going to rise starting Oct. 16.

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Benicia City Council approves revamped fee rates for services - Vallejo Times Herald