Cotati City Council
Agenda Staff Report
Item type: PUBLIC HEARINGS (ACTION)
To: City Council
Subject: CITY FEE SCHEDULE UPDATE
Date: May 28, 2024
Written by: Kevin Patterson, Deputy City Clerk
Recommendation
It is recommended that the City Council of the City of Cotati adopt a resolution updating the Master Fee Schedule and charges for City services and repealing previously adopted or conflicting fees and charges for such services.
Background
The City of Cotati has historically maintained a policy of recovering the cost of providing miscellaneous City services and regulatory activities so that the costs are borne by the direct beneficiaries of the services and regulatory activities, rather than by the City's General Fund.
Annually, City staff are directed to update the Fees in accordance with Cotati Municipal Code
3.42. Notice of the Council's consideration of the updated Master Fee Schedule and fee changes has been provided in compliance with applicable law. As also required by the Mitigation Fee Act, the City's information and cost data supporting the fee increases has been made available to the public at the City Clerk's office ten days in advance of this meeting.
Analysis/Discussion
Following the update to the fee schedule in 2023, in practice, staff have found some areas of the fee schedule need updates. Additionally, most of the fees in the schedule have been adjusted based on the San Francisco Bay Area CPI April index, in accordance with Cotati Municipal Code 3.42, which for 2024 was 2.4% and in some cases, the construction cost index (CCI). In certain cases, typically around document production and copying, the fees are set by statute and are not adjusted. These changes have been shown in the updated fee study, shown in tracked changes. In addition to the CPI and CCI adjustments, the following changes were made:
• Affordable Housing Monitoring Fee (Community Development) • Business License Zoning Compliance Review (Administrative Services) • Dog/Cat Licenses (Public Safety)
• ID Cards (Public Safety)
• Cancellation/Late Payment Fees (Recreation)
• Recycle Contamination Fee (Recreation)
• Cotati Train Depot Rental Rates (Recreation)
• Non-Profit Vendor Fees for City-hosted events (Recreation) • Including the Business License Tax Fees for improved transparency (Administrative Services)
To facilitate understanding of the changes made to the previous fee schedule, a tracked changes version of the schedule is attached. When the updated fee schedule goes into effect 60 days from adoption, the changes to the document will be accepted and formatting cleaned up.
There are a few fees with highlighting, this is for editing to indicate that those fees do not increase with an inflation escalator, but rather are set by statute.
Financial Considerations
The fiscal impact from the proposed fee schedules is difficult to determine and will be driven by utilization of the related services. However, the proposed fee schedule is intended improve overall the City’s recovery of costs incurred providing it the ability to stretch other resources further for the benefit of the public at-large.
Environmental Issues
This action is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) because it is not a project which has a potential for resulting in either a direct physical change in the environment, or a reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment, pursuant to CEQA Guideline section 15378.