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Committee advances projected fee schedule including higher dog-license and administrative grass-cut fees; effective date set for June 1
Summary
The finance committee discussed and advanced a package of modest fee increases — including dog-license fees and a revised grass-cut charge plus administrative fees — asked staff to prepare a local law (PL) and set the changes to take effect June 1 for budget modeling.
The Olean Finance Committee reviewed a package of projected fee increases on April 1 and directed staff to prepare the local legislation to set the fees effective June 1 so they can be included in budget figures.
Committee members discussed specific items, including ambulance-fee adjustments, code-enforcement fees, clerk—s office charges and animal-licensing fees. Jamie Grasby noted a legal constraint: fees-for-service are intended to cover the city—s actual cost and "can't be punitive in nature," meaning the service charge should not be a fine. Grasby told the committee that administrative fees may be collected on top of a breakeven service charge to cover city administrative work.
On animal licensing, the committee discussed raising the spayed/neutered dog license from $20 to $30 and the intact license from $30 to $40; members also discussed efforts to increase registration compliance as a revenue and public-safety measure. For grass-cutting charges, staff reported the contractor cost would be billed at a breakeven rate (committee referenced a figure of $0.02 per unit in the discussion) and the committee agreed the administrative fee portion (for first and second events) would be increased; committee members discussed the first-offense administrative fee and a higher second-offense administrative fee (transcript committee discussion referenced an administrative level of $250 and $500 as examples).
The committee asked staff to email the legal opinion they had received and to prepare the PL to set these fees, with an effective date of June 1 so they can be incorporated into the budget. Committee members agreed to proceed "en masse" with the projected fee schedule subject to the city attorney—s review and to post the local law for council action.
