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McHenry County staff pitches fee-schedule overhaul to close permit office shortfall; committee tables ordinance
Summary
County planning staff proposed two fee models to close a roughly $693,000 five-year gap in permit-office funding, including higher flat fees, new charges for incident action plans and updated stormwater fees. Commissioners asked for a single draft based on the modest "Model 1" and tabled the ordinance for further work.
McHenry County planning staff presented a two-model rewrite of the department's fee ordinance on April 7, proposing higher flat fees, new charges for incident action plans (IAPs) for large gatherings and a restructuring of zoning and building fees intended to reduce a projected five‑year revenue‑to‑expenditure gap.
The presentation, led by Adam, planning department staff, laid out two approaches: Model 1, a moderate update designed to bring fees closer to current staff costs, and Model 2, a larger adjustment that assigns maximum salary grades and produces a much bigger immediate revenue lift. "The average five‑year revenue to expenditure gap is $693,000," Adam told the committee, saying the models incorporate hard costs such as the SmartGov permit platform (about $45,000 per year) and Bluebeam review software.
Why it matters: the department says fees have not been comprehensively updated since 2015 even as permit volumes and the unit costs of…
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