Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Fees Budget topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Deschutes County reviews FY2026 fee schedule; public hearing set for June 11
Summary
County staff presented proposed fee adjustments across departments, including a Community Development refund-processing increase and a proposed GIS recording fee rise proposed by the county clerk. Environmental health and public health inspection fees were also flagged; board scheduled a public hearing June 11 and asked for public comment.
Deschutes County staff laid out proposed changes to the fiscal year 2026 fee schedule May 7 and told the Board of Commissioners they will return June 11 for a noticed public hearing and final action.
Management analyst Laura Skundrick presented the draft schedule, noting it is an annual review used by departments to propose inflationary increases or adjustments required by mandates. Skundrick said the board will see the fee schedule again before adopting the FY26 budget and asked commissioners to review department memos that explained significant changes.
Key items flagged at the meeting:
- Community Development administrative corrections: Skundrick noted a small revision in the Community Development section — the refund request processing fee was proposed to increase from $40 to $46 and associated text (the “no refunds if refund amount is less than $40” line) should be updated to match the new threshold.
- Community Development public hearing dates: Several public-hearing listings in the packet were corrected to show hearings scheduled May 20, 2025.
- Environmental Health: Staff noted departments propose a roughly 5% increase in environmental health fees to maintain staffing and operations. Planning staff and commissioners discussed environmental health inspection workloads and the need to keep caseloads manageable.
- Public health food safety and mobile food unit fees: Pages covering restaurant, school cafeteria, vending and mobile food unit reviews were highlighted as part of the proposed changes.
- County clerk/GIS recording fee: County Clerk Steve Dennison told the board the proposed GIS recording fee would increase materially. The county clerk’s memo explained the GIS fee is not statute-driven (unlike many recording fees) and has not been adjusted in years. Dennison said the fee would rise by $4 and that the proposed change is intended to sustain a fund supporting GIS-related staff and software. He described the proposal as an almost 50% increase relative to the legacy fee and urged the county to consider additional or alternative funding sources to avoid overburdening customers if recording volumes remain low.
Dennison told the board the $4 jump would move the local fee to about $10 and that statewide averages can be misleading; half of Oregon counties do not collect a GIS recording fee and many that do are much smaller jurisdictions. Commissioners asked him to prepare a short explanation of the fee components staff could use at the counter to answer customers’ questions.
The board asked department staff to continue community outreach and to return for a public hearing on the fee schedule on June 11; staff said submissions for the FY26 proposed budget already reflect the proposed fee changes. Members of the public and industry representatives were invited to submit comments ahead of the June 11 hearing.
No adoption votes were taken May 7 — the meeting was a work session and review. Additional corrections identified during the meeting (refund threshold wording and public hearing dates) will be corrected in the packet going to the June 11 public hearing.
