A sum of just under $1.8 million may not seem too significant as part of a $2 billion overall budget, but at a cash-strapped City Hall, every penny counts. That’s the message behind what the city budget team’s calling its Revenue Initiative, a package of new and increased fees for a panoply of city services that – if adopted by the City Council with the fiscal 2005 budget in September – will help keep the city’s books in balance.
Actually, $1.8 million – including fees for both the tax-supported city General Fund and the self-supporting enterprise funds – is a mere fraction of the initiative’s sticker price. By far the largest component, and one that’s sure to be dealt with separately come voting time, is a hefty rate increase for the Austin Water Utility, which according to City Manager Toby Futrell, needs to put in more than $800 million over the next five years to upgrade the city’s aging water and sewer system. (The actual need is even larger, but Futrell is recommending deferring more than $200 million in additional projects to keep the water-and-wastewater rate increases acceptable to the public.) Under the proposal, water rates will go up 10.5% and wastewater rates 15.4%, bringing $32.8 million in new funds to the utility.
It’s much the same story for the city’s storm-sewer system, which likewise has about $800 million in “critical needs”; FY 05 will be the fourth year of a five-year series of rate increases designed to bring the city’s drainage fee (on your utility bill) in line with what flood control and watershed protection actually cost. As in years past, commercial customers will be facing a much heftier increase – nearly 23%, compared to just under 7% for residential customers. This will bring the average commercial drainage fee to just under $150 a month.
Compared to that, the rest of the fees in the Revenue Initative are pocket change. The largest single new fee, and one that’s already generated its share of complaints, is a proposed Austin Fire Department fee for cleaning up after motor vehicle accidents of $400 per wreck. This is projected to bring in $480,000 a year to the General Fund, even if it’s only collected in 50% of incidents. Though other cities charge such a fee, insurers may balk at the additional cost; expect this one to get some focused discussion come August. The fire department alone would account for $800,000 of the initiative’s new revenue, through new and/or higher inspection fees and several small and likely hard-to-collect charges – like a $100 annual permit for “nightclubs” and a $50 permit for theatrical productions that use open flame. (The AFD only expects to issue six of the latter permits each year, though candles are more common than that in the Austin theatre world.) The department expects to have to hire another staffer to collect all its new fees.
Other city departments pale in comparison to fire in both the quality and quantity of their new fees; aside from its actual rates, the Water Utility simply raised every fee it charges (to developers, for example) by just over 2%, and the Parks and Recreation Department likewise offers a long list of largely incremental increases. More than nickel-and-diming is a 20% increase in Health and Human Services Department restaurant permits, expected to generate nearly $200,000, and a doubling of the fee for the stickers you’re supposed to put on your extra garbage bags to $4 each. You may not be surprised to know that this fee collects very little money for Solid Waste Services, nor is it intended to – it’s instead designed to promote recycling and minimize Austin’s waste stream. (Landfill fees would also go up.) Perhaps the same disincentive principle is behind the first-ever fees proposed for that bugaboo of the current council, historic zoning applications.
This article appears in June 25 • 2004.