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Council adopts annual CPI fee-adjustment policy over dissent; vote 4-2
Summary
By a 4-2 vote, the council approved a resolution to apply CPI-based annual adjustments to numerous county user fees to avoid future large single increases; two councilmembers opposed, citing concerns about "nickel-and-diming."
The council voted to adopt a policy applying annual Consumer Price Index adjustments to a list of county user fees that previously lacked automatic inflation indexing.
Chief Financial Officer Ryan Osowski said the policy is intended to "keep whole dollar increments so that when CPI catches up to increase the admission, a dollar, at that point, we would apply it." He said the measure covers a broad schedule of fees but is not intended to create new fees.
Several council members courted disagreement on equity and political optics. One council member called some adjustments "nickel-and-diming," while others argued that small, incremental updates avoid large, disruptive increases later. The council approved the resolution by roll call, 4-2; Councilmembers Santiago and Robbins registered opposition.
Council managers and staff said most large fees were already CPI-indexed and that this resolution closes remaining categories. The resolution will be implemented as specified in the adopted fee schedule.
