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Canby council debates street-maintenance fee increase, task force calls for audit
Summary
Canby councilors and staff spent a lengthy April 2 discussion reviewing options to raise the city’s street‑maintenance fee and asked staff to complete an audit before adopting any large change; several councilors supported indexing the fee to inflation immediately.
The Canby City Council on April 2 received an extended update on the city’s street‑maintenance fee and a recent citizen task force’s work. Staff and task‑force members presented multiple options for the residential fee (currently $5 monthly) and for nonresidential charges; the discussion concluded with council direction to have staff complete an audit before making a final change but several councilors asked the body to at least index the fee to inflation.
Background and options: Public works staff and the task force presented scenarios that would adjust single‑family residential monthly fees to about $7.46, $10.46 or $14.43. Staff said those figures were derived from the Pavement Condition Index (PCI) modeling and earlier task‑force recommendations; $7.46 would largely hold the PCI steady on a near‑term basis, $10.46 would improve it by roughly 2.5 PCI points and $14.43 would bring larger gains. Staff estimated those scenarios would increase annual street fund receipts from the roughly $600,000 budgeted this year to about $800,000 (49% increase), $1.2 million (109% increase) or $1.6 million (168% increase), respectively.
Task force rescind and audit request: Council President Hensley told the council that the task force had rescinded its numeric recommendation because the committee discovered errors in its meeting minutes and could not confirm the revenue totals used in its work. Staff told council the nonresidential fee is calculated using a multi‑factor formula (square footage, trip generation rates, monthly per‑trip charge) and that auditing account classifications and data in the city’s financial system will take more time than first anticipated. Eileen and finance staff recommended an audit of nonresidential billing and account coding before the council acts on a large fee change.
Council discussion and interim direction: Several councilors urged immediate action to at least index the street‑maintenance fee to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) so the fee does not erode further in purchasing power. Others echoed the task force caution, saying it would be irresponsible to adopt a large increase based on uncertain revenue data. Staff said the street fund can be budgeted for FY 2025‑26 without the proposed revenue and committed to completing an audit by late summer and to return with corrected totals and recommendations.
Other discussion topics included whether tax‑exempt properties (for example, certain government properties) should be charged, how to apply fees to multi‑tenant properties and whether the business‑license fee schedule should be adjusted. Staff noted public notice and a public-comment opportunity will be required for any fee adoption.
Next steps: Staff will perform a detailed audit of nonresidential accounts and the fee calculation, return with corrected revenue estimates by late summer and present draft fee language (methodology baked into ordinance and final amounts set by resolution). Councilors expressed a range of preferences — from indexing to CPI as a minimal action to staged increases over several years to reach a target PCI level — and asked staff to prepare options and public‑notice materials.
