Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the User Fee Study topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Council accepts user‑fee study report; draft fee schedule to return for public hearing June 3
Summary
A consultant and city staff presented a comprehensive user‑fee study identifying a gap between current fees and full cost recovery; the council accepted the report and directed staff to return with a cleaned draft master fee schedule for a June 3 public hearing.
The Half Moon Bay City Council received a citywide user‑fee study May 20 that compares existing charges with the calculated full cost of providing services and accepted the report for public hearing and adoption steps.
Nicole Kissam of NBS (fee consultant) presented the study’s approach: staff compiled current fees, workloads, staffing and one year of activity, calculated full‑cost hourly rates per fee program (including direct and indirect costs), and produced recommended maximums that represent total cost recovery. The study covered administrative services, planning, building, code enforcement, public works, public safety, and selected other programs; recreation and facility rentals were addressed separately.
Kissam said the non‑recreation fee programs currently recover about 51% of the estimated full cost and that moving to full cost recovery would raise annual fee revenue substantially. Staff’s initial recommendations — which exclude some program fees from full recovery for policy reasons — would generate an estimated additional $575,000 in annual revenue compared with current collections. The draft master fee schedule attached to the staff report will be refined and returned to council for a public hearing on June 3, with fees to take effect after the required statutory waiting periods for certain development fees.
Council members asked about fee impacts on permitting and whether raising fees might discourage compliance (for example, homeowners not pulling safety permits). Staff and the consultant said the council can make policy choices about which fees to subsidize and emphasized that some communities deliberately set lower fees to encourage permit compliance and protect public safety.
Council voted to accept the report and directed staff to clean up the draft fee schedule and publish hearing notices. A public hearing, adoption reading and any statutory waiting periods will follow the council’s June 3 and June 17 meetings, respectively.
