Hello. I am writing to object to the proposed fee increase. The reasons behind the increases have not been communicated effectively to those most impacted, nor the calculations transparent as to why such a dramatic increase is necessary (50% in most cases!). Small businesses are already struggling. The county should be seeking ways to assist small business not hurt them. Many are unaware these fee increases are potentially occurring, we need appropriate notification, and dialog. Increases that are justified and necessary should be spread out over multiple years if more than 10%.

I am writing to object to the recommended action and propose that the Board of Supervisors continue this hearing until more information has been provided. First, the fees appear to be calculated based on what County staff deem full cost recovery. The attachment name for the draft resolution literally says that. I though a majority of you recently directed staff that wasn't the policy direction you wanted to go in and it appears they might have done that anyway. I honestly can't tell because the underlying calculations are not posted online and I have been unable to gain access to them from the Executive Office despite contacting them to do so. In fact, because the public (or at least this member of the public) hasn't been provided the calculations that were used to calculate and justify the proposed fees, let alone for the full 10-day review period required by the Government Code (as referenced in the draft resolution), I object to this hearing proceeding at all because I have been robbed of the opportunity to review the calculations for these fees and thus am unable to determine if they have been calculated as required by law.

Absent the actual data and calculations, including the relevant time study data, I must broadly object to the adoption or imposition of fees that inappropriately include anything other than the actual incremental cost of providing that service. Frankly, the Supervisors should want these calculations as well because you are being asked to approve fees without any ability to determine if the fees are reasonable and based on the actual costs of providing the services rather than an attempt to generate General Fund revenue to pay for basic day-to-day expenses associated with the relevant departments. No local government can charge its baseline overhead costs to fee payers, they can only charge the actual incremental costs associated with providing the service. (Note: some fees are explicitly calculated this way, which is appropriate, the updated fee table lists such fees as "Staff Time x Weighted Rate"). Ted touched on this issue in his comments at the recent budget discussions.

For example, you can't charge the salaries of people in the department not directly involved in providing the particular service. The County's discussions and staff comments suggest the County is including allocated overhead and administrative costs to individual fees that are likely well beyond what can be charged. It is OK (and you should) use a particular staff person's fully-loaded effective hourly rate (i.e., including a portion of administrative and overhead expenses) when calculating the projected costs of their time associated with providing a particular service but you can't just charge all department overhead amongst fee payers based on the projected number of individual fee payers. Basically, general every day expenses that are incurred by the County that will be paid regardless or not if the service is requested are not appropriately included. What can be charged is taking the fully-loaded rate (this is usually the result of the County's internal cost allocation plan rather than simply their salary and benefits) of each relevant staff person directly involved in providing a particular service times their projected time associated with providing that service (based on the time study) and adding all those amounts up but only from the staff directly involved in the specific actions of the provided service, not other staff working in the department. You ca then add in any hard costs (e.g., printing) but again, only those hard costs that are directly tied to providing one unit of the relevant service. Basically, the actual staff time and the hard costs are all you can charge for a particular fee. In the past, some departments apparently took their entire annual budget and divided it among the number of permittees (or fee-payers) for the same year (usually based on the past year or an average of past years) and then set the "full cost recovery" fee that way. That is totally improper and, IMO, illegal. Full costs recovery doesn't mean any cost incurred by the County, it means all of the INCREMENTAL costs directly associated with the service. Thus, I object to the County updating the fee schedule as proposed to the extent that any fee has been calculated in a manner that includes additional "costs" beyond the direct, incremental costs. Normally I would identify each particular fee that I think is subject to that error but I can't do that without timely access to the underlying calculations. What we have now is basically, trust us, we did the work, you don't need to review it". Well, most of us don't trust the County Administration and rightfully so based on recent debacles like the Cubbison witch hunt and County officials apparently committing perjury on the stand (at least that is how I interpret the judge's ruling). If someone lies on the stand when under oath to only speak the truth., how can we trust that they have calculated fees in an appropriate and legal manner without them showing their actual calculations? Is there something to hide here? Is that why none of this information is already available to the public or even to you Supervisors who are being asked to rubber stamp the staff's projections? Based on the limited means the County has to generate additional revenue and the enormous projected deficit, there is too much motivation to potentially pad the expenses and drive up fees through these hidden calculations, sticking it to the fee-paying public in the process.

I also have one item that I want to specifically object to, which is the $5 fee listed in the Countywide Internal Fees at the start of the master list. The elections office can charge this fee as described in their section (it has an explicit statutory basis) but I don't think any search fees can be charged to locate what is otherwise a public record. That said, if this is merely an "internal" fee charged between County departments, I don't care because it won't impact members of the public. I just want to make sure the County isn't trying more shady moves like charging for search, retrieval, review, or redaction time for Public Records Act requests.

Finally, I object to all the PBS development impact fees being updated (i.e., changed from the current level) because I can't find any of the relevant impact fee nexus studies or annual fee reports, the last fine year's of which are supposed to be published on the County's website. Development-related fees have even more strict procedural guidelines, including the availability of the underlying calculations and fee data for the full 10-day pre-hearing review period and I haven't gotten any access to this relevant data despite requesting access to it through the Executive Office as directed by the public hearing notice. Oddly, the people I spoke with didn't appear to be aware of this requirement despite the relevant Government Code sections being listed in the draft resolution and their office being listed as the contact to get information about the fee hearing.