Title
Resolution approving amendments to the Public Works Engineering Division section of the City of South San Francisco Master Fee Schedule for Fiscal Year 2021-2022.
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WHEREAS, under State law, the City of South San Francisco is permitted to recover the costs associated with providing certain services considered to be a “personal choice” or “user fee”; and
WHEREAS, the Constitution of the State of California prohibits these fees from exceeding the reasonable cost of the service for which they are collected; and
WHEREAS, best management practices recommend that the City complete a fee study every three to five years, and apply the change in the Consumer Price Index (“CPI”) in the intervening years; and
WHEREAS, the last time the City of South San Francisco underwent a comprehensive Cost Allocation Plan and User Fee Study was in Fiscal Year (“FY”) 2016-17; and
WHEREAS, on August 28, 2019, Council adopted a resolution approving a contract with Matrix Consulting Group to conduct a comprehensive user fee analysis (“Fee Study”) with the goal of identifying the actual cost of providing fee-related City services and understanding recovery levels for each fee; and
WHEREAS, the Fee Study provided data related to current service levels and the cost and demand for those services, identified the maximum fees that can be charged for those services, and also provided the framework for assessing legal, financial, and policy issues associated with establishing those fees for service; and
WHEREAS, the results of the Study, including the proposed Public Works Engineering fees, were presented to the Budget Standing Committee by staff on August 3, 2020; and
WHEREAS, due to the economic impacts of the ongoing pandemic, the City did not adopt any fee changes for FY 2020-21 but rather only nominally adjusted fees in the Master Fee Schedule by two percent, with the exception of the newly adopted housing and planning fees; and
WHEREAS, an increase in the City’s Engineering Division fees is now proposed for FY 2021-22 based on the results and recommended amounts of the Fee Study, which do not exceed the reasonable estimate of the costs of providing the services associated with the fees; and
WHEREAS, the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculated the change in CPI for All Urban Consumers for the San Francisco - Oakland - Hayward area between December 2019 and December 2021 to be 6.3 percent, which has been applied to the cost of services determined by the Fee Study; and
WHEREAS, with these fee adjustments, the City will effectively recover the costs for providing services to the community and will continue to do so after the new fees are implemented.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the City Council of the City of South San Francisco does hereby amend the FY 2021-2022 Master Fee Schedule for Engineering Division Fees, as set forth in Exhibit A attached hereto and incorporated herein, which will become effective 60 days after the approval of this resolution.
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