Building Official Shane Kittenorf presented the city's analysis of fee reductions for private providers under Florida law and proposed a 15% overall discount after accounting for fixed operational costs, staff verification and administrative processing. Shane told council his calculation began with a roughly 30% variable‑cost exposure for plan review and inspections but was reduced to 15% after factoring the city’s fixed operating expenses and the administrative workload required to verify prior‑provider submissions and result inspections.

Industry representatives disputed Shane’s math. Wade Conninger, executive director of the Cape Coral Construction Contractors & Industry Association, said local private providers and other municipalities document larger workload reductions and urged council to keep the current discounts in place (which staff said were previously applied at roughly 33% for inspections and about 47% for combined plan review/inspection in practice). Shane and others acknowledged that some peer cities use a 20–30% range or per‑square‑foot plan review fees, and council members asked staff to compare neighboring jurisdictions.

Outcome: Council voiced support for remaining with the existing, practice‑level discounts and instructed staff to codify the current amounts into ordinance language and return with a formal proposal; staff said it will also explore automation (AI) and software to reduce processing overhead.

Direct quotes in audit‑safe form: 'A prior provider is approximately 30% of operations if we're utilizing full services ... but after the city has to do the extra steps of processing ... we come out with a 15% total discount,' Shane said. 'The CCCI urges the city to revisit the private provider discount methodology ... the discount needs to remain where it was for now,' Wade Conninger said.