28 - Amendment of Fee Schedule for Building Permitting - Planning and Zoning - PUblic Works - Engineering -Fire Marshal Department

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Item No. 28 TO: Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and City Council Grayson Path, City Manager FROM: Andrew Mack, AICP Director Planning & Community Development Michael Smith, Director Public Works Duke McGee, Building Official Clyde Crews, Fire Marshall Derek Dacus, Engineering Technician SUBJECT: Building, Planning & Zoning, Fire and Engineering Permit Fees DATE: December 12, 2022 BACKGROUND & DISCUSSION One of the greatest challenges every municipality faces is being able to fund the services it provides. While a municipality has numerous options for sources of revenue to support these services, the default source of funding is property tax. However, citizens, councilmembers, and staff actively seek opportunities to supplant property tax with other forms of revenue when possible and appropriate. While many of our city departments do not have the option of producing much if any revenue, there are several departments that do have the option available to apply fees to help cover the cost of the service provided by that department. This can help with replacing the need for property tax support, thereby cutting the property tax or redirecting it elsewhere for additional needed services in the City. One such revenue source that the City has available to it is through its Building, Planning & Zoning, Fire and Engineering permits & services via charging fees for permits, reviews, inspections, water & sewer taps, etc. This can help to offset the cost of operating these departments. Ideally, the fees charged would equal the operating expenses, but unfortunately this has not been the case in the City of Paris. While the amount of local development ultimately drives whether or not revenue is collected, it is difficult to guarantee that certain fixed costs (ex: payroll, insurance, etc.) will be covered strictly by internal department revenue. As such, it is logical and fair that as much of the cost of permitting and inspection services as possible should be borne by those receiving the specialized service and not be an additional burden on the general taxpaying public. Some services in these departments do provide a direct public benefit by ensuring public safety, thus warranting little to no fee and being supported by public funding. However, most of the services performed in these departments directly and primarily benefit the developer and additional consideration should be given to more closely aligning these fees paid for by the developer commensurate with the cost of providing the services. In other instances, the cost of labor and parts have increased over time such as for the water & sewer tap services. In order to align our permitting and development review processes better with the aforementioned Page 1 of 2