2021-02-22-minutes-public-works-study-session

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KITTITAS COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS PUBLIC WORKS — BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS STUDY SESSION STAFF REPORT STUDY SESSION DATE: February 22, 2021 TOPIC: Public Works Permit Fee Review ACTION REQUESTED: Direct Staff LEAD STAFF: Mark R. Cook RECOMMENDATION: Reduce the number of current Public Works (PW) permits from 44 to 23 and reduce the number of flood control zone permits from 9 to 5. BRIEFING SUMMARY: • PW has not been good tracking time spent processing permits. • Management believes too many permits exist. • Reducing the number of permits assists staff in reduced job coding. • Combining numerous permits to a single permit with a base charge and collecting actual time spent provides cost savings to clients. BACKGROUND: Departments of the Board standardized fee rates together in 2017 using the same consultant software package. The Board elected to restrain many PW permits to 25% cost recovery. Poor PW time recording defines a problem. Management proposes simplifying the permit process and restructuring cost recovery. DISCUSSION: For the past several months, PW management has been delving into permit fees. The lack of historic tracking on some permits, and good tracking on others results in our consideration of the entire permit structure. PW performs project cost accounting so that all time is tracked whatever the activity. As we have reviewed the 2017 work that went into each permit and compared to what we are spending, we are well under collecting for our most accessed permits. A previous Board elected to cap PW fees — mostly at the 25% level of predicted cost from the 2017 effort. While it would be simple to increase 2017 fees to 50% of forecast cost, we are contemplating a revised approach to permit fee cost recovery. Page 1 of 4 Public Works "Work Session Staff Report", 2021