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Health department proposes fee changes to align with state law, seeks higher septic and variance fees
Summary
Kathy Hooper told commissioners the health department will update plan-review categories to match House Bill 853 (2025), add medium-size plan reviews, and raise septic permit and variance fees — including a proposed $400 variance application fee — with a resolution to be drafted for a future public hearing.
Kathy Hooper, speaking for the Lincoln County health department, outlined revisions to the department’s fee schedule on Feb. 11 designed to align local plan-review categories with changes in state law and to bring septic-related fees more in line with neighboring counties.
Hooper said the 2025 Legislature passed House Bill 853, which replaces the county’s prior small/large food-service plan-review categories with small, medium and large. She proposed retaining the small plan-review fee at $60, reassigning the old large fee ($115) to the new medium category and setting the large plan-review fee at $150. Mobile food plan-review categories would also be split into small and large under the new schedule.
"The plan review fee stays here. The state licensing fee goes to the state and then we receive that back when we inspect," Hooper said, explaining the division of application versus licensing revenue.
Hooper also proposed raising the standard septic permit fee from $150 to $200, increasing the non-degradation local review fee from $200 to $250, and adding a distinct multi-user system permit for systems with three or more connections. For variance requests the health department recommended a $400 variance application fee with $100 for each additional variance on the same application, citing the research time and frequent special board-of-health meetings those requests often require. Hooper noted neighboring counties charge significantly more — for example, Lake and Flathead County schedules in the packet showed fees up to $600.
Commissioners discussed using a resolution and public meeting to adopt fees so residents could ask questions. One commissioner asked for an implementation path and whether any single fee needed immediate change; Hooper said staff will draft a resolution and return with the fee schedule for a public hearing.
If approved, the changes will appear in a future resolution and be subject to local public notice and comment before taking effect.
