Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Addressing Fee topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
GIS manager proposes addressing fee to cover staff time; commissioners discuss integrating charge into permit schedule
Summary
Effingham County GIS staff proposed a new fee to cover the time needed to create and maintain 9-1-1 addressing records. Commissioners discussed whether to implement the fee as a standalone charge or fold it into existing permit fees; staff recommended adding it to the county’s schedule of fees at the next review.
Pamela Melser, the county GIS manager, asked the Board of Commissioners to consider a new addressing fee to pay for staff time required to create and maintain emergency addresses. The proposal was discussed at the March 18 regular meeting and moved toward inclusion in the county’s annual schedule of fees rather than immediate separate adoption.
Why it matters: Accurate addressing is central to emergency response, mail and delivery services and permitting. Melser said that in 2024 the GIS team processed about 183 individual address applications and that individual cases can take an hour or more of staff time.
What was proposed and discussed
- Workload and time: Melser said the department averages “a minimum of 1 to 1.5 hours for individual applications,” explaining that individual, off-cycle requests often cost nearly as much staff time as bulk subdivision addressing.
- Fee structure considerations: The staff report included a tiered fee table (examples were discussed in the meeting) that would price larger addressing jobs (subdivisions) differently than single-house requests. Melser described a sample calculation that approximated the per-address labor cost as about $41 per 50-address block when aggregated for large projects.
- Integration vs. stand-alone fee: Commissioners asked whether the addressing fee should be embedded in building-permit or subdivision application fees or collected as a separate line item. Staff said OpenGov can accept an addressing line item and that most addressing fees are collected alongside other application fees; the county’s usual annual review of its schedule of fees (typically at the tail end of the budget cycle) would be a logical place to finalize any change.
Next steps: No formal vote was taken. Staff recommended adding the addressing fee to the OpenGov payment system and bringing any language changes to the fee schedule during the next scheduled update so the county does not have to re-post separate fee changes mid-cycle.
Ending: Commissioners directed staff to draft implementation language and to return the proposal as part of the annual fee-schedule update for formal adoption.
