(Danville) — Danville’s City Manager has re-worked a schedule of fee changes that City Council rejected last month.
Ken Larking says the goal is to charge the users of services for the cost of providing those services. “This is a best practice for municipalities,” Larking told Council in a letter making the new recommendations. “If the fees exist in a separate Enterprise Fund, the fees typically cover the entire cost to provide that service. The purpose of establishing fees instead of using the general taxing authority to cover costs is so that the people who benefit from the service are the ones paying for the cost.”
Instead of $500, Larking is proposing the fee for Short-Term Rental Inspections be $250. He’s also asking Planning Application fees to go up from $360 to $400—applications to the Board of Zoning Appeals to increase from $206 to $250 and for various increases in building inspection fees. Larking says those fees are in line with comparable cities.
Larking is renewing his request for a $12 increase in monthly sanitation fees to help with the rising cost of equipment needed to provide the service. “The fund is currently operating at a deficit and can no longer sustain the same level of services as residents are accustomed to receiving,” said Larking.
The City Manager is also asking Council again to increase Cemetery Fees. He says the Cemetery Fund is running at a deficit and will run out of money next year if the new fees are not adopted. Cemetery fees have been unchanged for 12 years.
In rejecting fee increases last month, several Councilmen said it didn’t feel right to raise fees, immediately after voting to lower Personal Property rates.
Council will take up the new fee request next week.