Board of Supervisors ponder new fees

It may soon cost more to license a dog, access certain library services and develop property in Trinity County as the board of supervisors considers a variety of proposed county fee increases at its meetings in March.

First up for the March 3 meeting will be proposed increases for animal control and library services. Substantial increases in many planning department fees will be considered at the board's March 17 meeting.

It currently costs $5 a year to license a dog that has been spayed or neutered and the proposal is to raise that to $10 with a discount offered for pet owners who pay for a three-year license that would cost $25. Currently, there is no discount on a three-year license.

For an unaltered dog, the current fee is $10 and that is proposed to go to $20 with a three-year license available for $50. Pack licenses for up to eight dogs are also available and those fees are proposed to double. The dog licensing late fee is proposed to rise from $5 to $8.

The proposed fee increases would generate an estimated $12,000 in additional revenue that Animal Control Officer Christine Edwards said is badly needed to cover rising costs to care for a growing number of abandoned animals passing through the animal shelter.

In charge of the animal control budget, Sheriff Lorrac Craig said that without the proposed fee increases, there will need to be additional cuts made in the animal shelter assistant position that was reduced from full time this year to six hours a day. He added that the proposed revenue from fee increases was included in the budget adopted last fall.

Upon hearing that during a general discussion last week about fee increases, Supervisor Howard Freeman said he does not believe the board was informed about revenue from unapproved fee increases being used to balance the budget last September.

"These fees haven't even been published in the newspaper yet, but we're being told 'oh, by the way, they are already in the budget.' I'm really bothered by that," he said.

Craig said the animal license bills are only sent out once a year, in May, "and we've been trying to have this discussion for a long time. We're prepared to deal with it if it doesn't go through."

Freeman said, "The bigger issue for me is I don't want to see 10 other department heads in here, building fee increases into their budgets and coming at this point to make adjustments if we don't agree to raise them."

Fees for library services are proposed to offset state budget cuts. Included is a new $2 handling fee for interlibrary loans borrowed from outside the North State Cooperative Library System area; a $1 per page fee for outgoing fax services; research fees at the rate of $10 per hour (calculated in 15- minute increments) for help from library assistants; and increases in the rental fees to use the Weaverville library meeting room.

It currently costs $20 to rent the room plus a refundable deposit and insurance requirements. The proposal is to charge $30 for half-day use and $50 for a full day.

Several large increases are proposed in planning fees on a variety of services including use permits, rezones, general plan amendments, floodplain development permits, variances, environmental review and appeals. New fees are proposed for clerical or planner assistance at the counter.

All of the proposed fees are based on time studies and overhead calculations to determine the actual cost of providing services. Several 100 percent to 200 percent increases are proposed and a few are greater than that.

The cost to appeal a planning commission decision to the board of supervisors is proposed to go from $300 to $1,000 — an increase of 233 percent. A current $30 fee for review of a project by the county's architectural review committee, required in historic districts, is proposed to go to $200 which is an increase of 566 percent.

Similar planning fee increases were proposed last year and never adopted.

Roger Jaegel said he agrees with some proposals, but not others.

"The reason for fees is to reflect the cost to do the process, but we ought to be looking at processes that would be more efficient," he said.

County Administrative Officer Dero Forslund said there is not enough revenue coming in to cover the cost of running the planning department right now "and we only have one person in there. I see raising fees by 100 percent as bad, but it's also bad that we're that much under what it takes to run the department."

"In this economy, it's hard to raise fees, but it's also hard not to," said Supervisor Judy Pflueger, who added that some of the percentages proposed "are very large, but when you're dealing with very small numbers to begin with, they're out of perspective."

Wendy Reiss commented that only people who use the services pay the fees, and Howard Freeman argued that at some level "you reach a tipping point where you just don't pay and you do your project anyway."

Supervisor Judy Morris said she is concerned about that with the animal control fees.

"With rate increases, will folks say 'forget it' and give up their dogs because they just can't keep them now? I don't want this to backfire," she said.