North Port commission reviews citywide user-fee study; staff to model budget scenarios

North Port commissioners spent a workshop session March 3 reviewing a consultant'prepared user-fee study that examined more than 500 fees across city departments and asked staff to model what adopting the recommendations would mean for the coming budget.

The consultant, Dennis Gorrell, summarized the study'methodology and findings, saying user fees "are fees that fund services that provide a private benefit" and explaining the study calculated "the full cost of providing each service" by building labor, department overhead and citywide indirect overhead into per-service cost estimates.

Commissioners and staff focused discussion on parks and recreation, fire and emergency medical services, utility user fees and the franchise tax the city collects on electric bills. Finance Director Kim Williams and City Manager Fletcher joined the presentation and discussion.

The study broke its review into department groups. Highlights the consultant gave included: citywide (9 fees, current average cost recovery ~24% -> proposed ~27%), utilities/user fees (17 fees, current ~49% -> proposed ~66%), roads and drainage (14 fees, current ~50% -> proposed ~67%), police user fees (13 fees, current ~42% -> proposed ~51%), fire inspection and development fees (146 fees, current ~88% -> proposed ~87%), EMS (7 fees, most…