Salinas finance committee recommends 2.8% rise in development impact fees and 2.2% CPI increase to citywide fees
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Summary
The Salinas finance committee voted to recommend the City Council approve a 2.8% increase to development impact fees (effective July 1, 2026) and a 2.2% CPI increase to the citywide schedule of fees and service charges for FY 2026–27; members cited the need to plan for infrastructure while noting an unusually large one-time boost to impact-fee balances from an Amazon project.
The Salinas Finance Committee voted to recommend that the City Council increase development impact fees by 2.8% effective July 1, 2026, and to adopt a 2.2% CPI-based increase to the citywide schedule of fees and service charges for fiscal year 2026–27.
Assistant public works director Adriana Robles asked the committee to recommend council approval of the change to the development impact fees, saying staff calculated the adjustment using the construction cost index. "Today's request is, to ask the commission or the committee to recommend the city council approval of resolution increasing the development impact fees, by 2.8% effective July 1," Robles said.
Why it matters: staff reported an impact-fee fund balance of $20,900,000 as of March 2, with the bulk held in traffic impact fees. Robles and other staff explained that roughly $10 million of the traffic-fee balance came from a large Amazon project, which has temporarily inflated the fund balance but does not by itself resolve long-term infrastructure funding needs. Committee members pressed staff on how those funds are allocated and how the city will finance projects such as storm drains and Fire Station 7.
A. Pedroza, assistant finance director, presented the citywide schedule of fees and said staff recommends applying a 2.2% CPI increase citywide and soliciting a consultant to perform a fee study (the city last did a fee study in 2015). "This year, staff is recommending a 2.2% increase per the CPI," Pedroza said, explaining that most fees would be adjusted by that metric while others remain unchanged or are mandated not to change.
Committee discussion focused on transparency and forecasting. Members asked staff to explain prior council choices during the COVID period and asked for clearer communications to the public so residents understand why some fee accounts appear large (the Amazon-related boost) and how fees tie to specific capital projects. One committee member noted that while $20.9 million sounds large, it is not necessarily sufficient for the volume of planned infrastructure.
The committee approved two separate motions: one to recommend council adoption of the 2.8% development impact fee increase and another to recommend the 2.2% CPI increase for the citywide fee schedule. Both motions passed on recorded roll calls with the committee voting unanimously in the meeting's recorded votes.
The committee asked staff to include perspective in the council report on existing financial capacity and to note that a citywide fee study will be solicited to review cost recovery and competitiveness going forward. The items will be presented to the full City Council for final action.
