COUNTY ADMINISTRATION OFFICE - R. ESPINOSA

Accept Willdan, Fee study and consider recommendations on increasing fees thought San Benito County.  

SBC FILE NUMBER: 425

As part of a general cost recovery strategy, local governments have adopted user fees to fund programs and services that provide limited or no direct benefit to the community as a whole. As counties struggle to maintain levels of service and variability of demand, they have become increasingly aware of subsidies provided by the General Fund and have implemented cost-recovery targets. To the extent that governments use general tax monies to provide individuals with private benefits, and not require them to pay the full cost of the service (and, therefore, receive a subsidy), the government is limiting funds that may be available to provide other community-wide benefits. In effect, the government is using community funds to pay for private benefit. Unlike most revenue sources, the county has more control over the level of user fees they charge to recover costs, or the subsidies they can institute.

In recent years, there has been a growing trend for municipalities to update their fee schedules to reflect the actual costs of certain public services primarily benefiting users. User Fees recover costs associated with the provision of specific services benefiting the user, thereby reducing the use of General Fund monies for such purposes. In addition to collecting the direct cost of labor and materials associated with processing and administering user services, it is common for local governments to recover support costs. Support costs are those costs relating to a local government's central service departments that are properly allowable to the local government's operating departments. Central services support cost allocations were derived from the Town's Cost Allocation Plan.

The scope of this study encompasses a review and calculation of the user fees charged by the following San Benito County departments and divisions:

• Agriculture
• Assessor 
• Office Emergency Services
• Environmental Health
• Public Health
• Propation
• Library
• Clerk of the Board 
• Geographica Information Systems 
• Sheriffs
• Tax Collector 
• Mental Health
• Planning
• Building
• Code Enforcement

The study involved the identification of existing and potential new fees, fee schedule restructuring (particularly for the Building Division), data collection and analysis, orientation and consultation, quality control, communication and presentations, and calculation of individual service costs (fees) or program cost recovery levels.