Harney County court votes to waive building fees for county-funded entities after split vote

The Harney County Court voted on April 1 to waive commercial building permit fees for entities funded by Harney County tax dollars, including county departments, schools and special districts. The motion, described by its mover as a temporary policy to help county-funded entities, passed on a divided vote during the meeting.

The vote followed extended debate between the county’s three elected officials. County Commissioner Patty Dorril argued against a categorical discount, saying Harney County’s building department had recently been established as an enterprise fund and that it charges a state-aligned fee schedule required to sustain inspections, plan review and commercial permitting locally. Dorril said reducing or waiving fees would “derail our county’s ability to provide commercial building services” and could force the county to revert to using state services with longer delays.

Commissioner Rob Frank and another commissioner advocated a different view. Frank said he favored using county tax dollars for county-funded projects, contending "if we get, for example, dollars 4,000,000 worth of tax dollars to put in an event center, I would like to see $4,000,000 worth of build, not $3,800,000 worth of build." Frank moved the motion to waive fees for county-funded entities; the motion was seconded and then carried by the court.

Officials said the building department had already made one-time concessions: the building official applied a 10% reduction on a single project. Members of the public also contested some widely circulated fee figures during public comment: a community member said a crane concession-stand structural permit was $1,548.31 and another permit (an “egg building”) was $3,156 — not the much larger figures that had been reported in social media posts.

County leaders acknowledged the tension between making public dollars stretch farther for construction and maintaining a self-sustaining building program. Dorril said the department’s fee revenue was designed to keep the program from drawing on the general fund and to maintain prompt, local commercial permitting rather than reverting to state review and the delays that can accompany that process.

The court also discussed establishing a structured approach to any future catastrophe-related fee relief and agreed staff should return with options, including time-limited waivers tied to declared emergencies. No formal countywide disaster-fee policy was adopted during the meeting.

What’s next: The waiver as approved applies to county-funded entities identified in the motion and county staff signaled they would draft procedures and consider time-limited emergency policies for future deliberation.