Peoria staff propose fee changes and a three-year rolling review for development and department fees
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Summary
City staff told council they are updating a three-year rolling schedule to review fees and recommended a set of fee adjustments this cycle — including an illustrative 15% increase on several development-related fees and a tiered approach to large site-development fees — to ensure cost recovery and address positions added this budget.
City staff told the council they are updating how Peoria reviews and sets municipal fees and presented an approach that couples a three-year rolling schedule with specific proposed fee adjustments to cover new staff and inflationary costs.
Policy and method Staff described two governing documents: council policy 1-11 (community program fees; partial recovery bands) and council policy 1-12 (development services; generally full cost recovery). They proposed a three-year rolling calendar for fee reviews so departments are reviewed in logical clusters: year 1 development services, year 2 administrative fees (city records, clerk, attorney related), and year 3 departmental program fees (parks, recreation and similar user-fee services). The approach is intended to keep rates aligned with costs rather than letting them drift.
Fee-change examples and rationale Staff explained they performed a cost and volume analysis for chapter 27 fees (building, site/civil, planning and fire). For example, staff modeled building-permit revenues and costs over the last three years, added full wrapped costs for a new permitting/software position and applied inflationary projections for wages and health insurance. That math produced an illustrative 15–20% increase in some fees to restore cost neutrality under the updated assumptions; staff warned those are modeled numbers and said they will do sensitivity analyses and peer comparisons before presenting a final ordinance.
Site-development fees Staff highlighted an issue with the site-development fee method: currently a fixed percentage (3%) of project value can make fees disproportionate for very large industrial civil projects. Staff said they plan to propose a tiered approach so very large projects are not charged an amount in excess of the actual review workload and to avoid pricing Peoria out of competitive markets for large projects.
Next steps and public notice Staff said final fee proposals will be posted with the budget for public notice (60-day notice where required) and that the city will present a fee ordinance for council consideration prior to implementing any increases. They also noted some new fee types will be introduced (for example, industrial pretreatment program fees and updated redaction fees for body-worn camera records requests) and that some department fees are tied to policy bands set by council.
Why it matters Staff framed the changes as necessary to keep municipal services financially sustainable and to ensure permit reviewers and plan-review systems are appropriately resourced without unexpected revenue shortfalls.
Ending Staff asked council to support the schedule and analytical approach and said detailed fee ordinances will return for council consideration during the budget adoption process.
