REPORT TO COUNCIL
SUBJECT
Title
Discussion and Review of User Fees for Cost of Services and Workplan to Evaluate User Fees
Report
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The purpose of this presentation is to inform the City Council (Council) of staff's efforts to advance the City's priorities to stabilize our fiscal outlook in order to preserve service and staffing levels, generate more revenue to meet expenditure growth demands, and develop strategies for unfunded needs/projects.
As part of the continuing budget stabilization work effort, staff has stated that there will need to be further analysis of revenue options in order to provide sustainable budget solutions to increase current revenue sources and/or identify new revenue sources to stabilize the City's future fiscal condition. Following are the revenue strategies that staff will be analyzing for Council consideration:
1. Increase in User Fees,
2. Increase in the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) rate,
3. Evaluate the feasibility for a Utility User Tax (UUT), and
4. Additional Council direction is required on whether to study a Business License Tax or any other type of Business Tax.
This study session will begin the policy work resulting from the Council directed Cost of Services Study. This study has identified the permit areas where the City is under-collecting the cost associated with providing services by approximately $20 million. This known funding gap is, therefore, being subsidized by other City revenue sources and it is worth the City Council's deep review to determine whether it would like to continue with this level of subsidy.
Based on the information provided in this report, at a global or per unit level, staff requests policy direction from Council regarding fees that they wish to continue to subsidize, and at what level to set cost recovery for remaining fees.
BACKGROUND
On a periodic basis, it is incumbent upon government agencies to comprehensively evaluate and update their fee schedules in an effo...
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