EUREKA, Oct. 27, 2025

Council member Scott Pugh told the work meeting that migrating business licensing to the iWORKS online platform should reduce office workload and paperwork and recommended several fee and process changes if the council adopts the system.

"The idea was that it would pay for itself," Council member Scott Pugh said, explaining the administrative efficiencies expected from online filing, e-mail reminders and reduced paper mailings. He recommended keeping the commercial license fee at $60, increasing the home-business license from $20 to $25, and charging $5 per document if city staff must upload supporting documents on behalf of a business.

Pugh and other council members discussed allowing businesses to prepay multiple years. Staff said iWORKS can add fields for an expiration date and a reminder date; the system can require that required documents (for example, health department certificates) be uploaded before an automated renewal is completed. Staff suggested adding reminder processes so city personnel would prompt businesses to upload current certificates one year after a multiyear payment.

Council members expressed support for allowing multi-year payments if the online system enforces document uploads or if staff maintain reminder procedures. They also discussed the revenue timing impact of multi-year payments (for example, locking in current fees if a business pays multiple years in advance) and noted iWORKS could implement reminder and expiration fields to reduce administrative risk.

Staff said they would draft a written procedure and public-facing instructions for the proposed iWORKS implementation and return with a recommended ordinance amendment or administrative rule for the regular meeting.