City fee increases spark discussion

The city of Grand Forks is preparing to increase fees and the cost of various permit licenses, but some City Council members complain that the increases seemed arbitrary.

Some fees went up by a little, some by a lot and some not at all.

The topic received some heavy-duty discussion at Monday's Finance Committee meeting when Council President Hal Gershman said he thought the city had agreed to index fee increases to the inflation rate.

But that didn't appear to be the case.

Exhibit No. 1 was the tipping fee at the landfill, which went up 1.2 percent to $42 in the 2011 budget. Exhibit No. 2 was the emergency alarm fee for businesses, which went up 203 percent to $100.

Gershman and committee chairman Doug Christensen were concerned that the increases weren't applied fairly across the board.

The problem is the council had already agreed to the city budget, which assumed certain fee levels, and by state law can't increase the budget. The committee agreed to ask city attorney Howard Swanson to check what fees may be changed and the full council will review the matter next Monday.

Despite the committee action, it appeared unclear that the discussion was very conclusive.

The 203 percent increase wasn't anything city staff suggested. It came out of the 911 authority, a separate jurisdiction, and was earlier approved by the council, budget officer Maureen Storstad reminded the committee.

The 1.2 percent increase was based on the balance between revenue and expenses, said Public Works Director Todd Feland. In other words, it's based on the cost of service.

The cost of a building permit stayed the same because it's based on construction costs, and those costs are rising, said City Engineer Al Grasser.

In theory, there's already an element of inflation built into the cost of constructing a building, so increasing the fee by the inflation rate would mean applying inflation twice.

Further, in discussing the permit cost, Christensen seemed to have argued against indexing to inflation when he suggested that permits pay for city inspectors to check the safety of new buildings and should reflect the higher wages paid to those inspectors. In other words, it should be based on the cost of service.

Reach Tran at (701) 780-1248; (800) 477-6572, ext. 248; or send e-mail to ttran@gfherald.com .