BOARD OF SUPERVISORS (acting as Assessment Appeals Board) -- Assessment Appeals Fee
According to California Revenue and Taxation Code Section 1611.5, a reasonable fee or deposit may be imposed by the county to cover the expense of preparing a written findings of fact. The written findings of fact shall fairly disclose the board's determination of all material points raised by the party in his or her petition and at the hearing, including a statement of the method or methods of valuation used in appraising the property. County Counsel's updated cost for the associated findings of fact is $103 per hour, with a three hour deposit total equaling $309. The Clerk of the Board collects the deposit on behalf of County Counsel, who then deposits the funds. This 10.43% reduction is associated with the contracting out of these particular services.
CLERK OF THE BOARD
The agenda subscription for both the 6 months and 12 months is being deleted. These fees were adopted in 2001 in response to County residents who were interested in getting a copy of the Board of Supervisors hard copy packets, which was prior to the Board's more extensive use of the Internet when the paper form was the only way to view the packets. A hard copy was available for the public outside the Board chambers, but if they wanted their own copy mailed to them, then they needed to either subscribe to the 6 months or 12 months subscription to cover the printing costs. During the past several years the County began providing all of the Board backup via the County’s website, thus allowing the public more access in viewing the backup material. County residents are now able to access this backup in a variety of places, including computer libraries. In 2011 the Board of Supervisors went paperless and the Clerk no longer prepares a hard copy of the agenda packet, thus making the subscriptions fee obsolete.
The Audio Tape fee is also being deleted. This fee was adopted in 1992 at a time when the Board of Supervisors meetings were captured on audio tape. The Clerk of the Board’s office offered this service of copying tapes to the public at a cost of $15 per audio tape. The Board of Supervisors meetings are no longer recorded on audio tapes but are streamed by video and can be viewed on-line. In addition, the Clerk of the Board no longer has the ability to copy audio tapes, so this item needs to be deleted.
PLANNING AND PUBLIC WORKS -- Landfill
Division of Integrated Waste Management Fees: The Division of Integrated Waste Management (division) operates as a self-supporting enterprise fund and depends on revenue from disposal and recycling services, and permit fees to fund most of its programs, including operating the Yolo County Central Landfill (landfill), and Esparto Convenience Center (transfer station).
Under AB 1343, California enacted an industry-led, statewide stewardship program to reduce the generation of leftover paint, promote its reuse, and properly manage unwanted leftover paint. On February 26, 2013 the division signed an agreement with PaintCare, the stewardship organization that oversees the California Program. This agreement provides that PaintCare will pay for proper recycling of all architectural paint collected through our Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) and Business Hazardous Waste collection programs. This cost savings, as well as revised HHW operations have allowed the division to accept for free all business and residential latex paint, residential oil-based paint and residential fluorescent bulbs and tubes whenever the landfill is open. The estimated fee loss of $1,000 is offset by cost savings under the PaintCare program.
The division has recycling agreements for the waste tires and metal materials collected at the landfill and transfer station. Under these agreements, the cost to recycle tires has decreased, and revenues for metals have increased, allowing the fees for these materials to be reduced. The landfill and Esparto transfer station tip fees for tires have been reduced by an average of $1.50 per tire, and the fee for scrap metal has been eliminated. The reduction in tip fees for scrap metal is offset by the increase in metal prices paid to the landfill by recyclers.
Due to increased operating costs, the fees for the following materials are insufficient to cover the costs of services provided:
• mixed construction and demolition debris (C&D),
• wood and yard waste (GW),
• municipal solid waste (MSW),
• bulky waste materials such as styrofoam and furniture, and
• wastes requiring special handling.
C&D materials that are accepted at the landfill include gypsum/wallboard, concrete, bricks, asphalt, dirt/soil/gravel, scrap metals, most plastics, lumber and painted wood. The proposed C&D and MSW tipping fee increase is $2.00 per ton (for each) is about 4.5 percent, from $43 to $45 per ton for both types of materials. The proposed increase for GW is $1.00 per ton, from $29 to $30 per ton; an increase of approximately 3.5%. The proposed increases for bulky waste materials such as household furnishings and large tree stumps is $7 from $100 to $107 per ton, and $2 for styrofoam materials from $268 to $270 per ton. These represent increases of 7% and 0.7%, respectively. Staff also proposes to increase the per ton rate for disposal of materials that require special handling such as screenings and grits and rags from Wastewater Treatment Facilities from $93 to $99 per ton, an increase of 7.5%. When combined, these fee revisions will provide an estimated annual revenue increase of approximately $121,522, which is about 1.4 percent of the landfill’s annual revenue.
Adoption of the proposed fees will allow the division to:
• Reduce the tip fees for business paint, scrap metal and waste tires, which should reduce clean up costs for illegally dumped waste tires,
• Increase the tip fees for commercial loads of C&D, MSW, GW, and bulky and special waste to fully recover costs for these services, and
• Expand the hours for free collection of paint, and residential fluorescent bulbs and tubes.
Master Fee Resolution Background
In September 1991, the Yolo County Board of Supervisors approved the county's first master fee resolution (Resolution 91-115), which incorporated an estimated 1,000 fees and charges for services performed by county departments. The use of a single resolution and integrated fee schedule allowed for a systematic review of fees, by department, thereby allowing them to make adjustments as necessary to reflect changing service delivery costs. Since then, the master fee resolution has been adopted annually as part of the Yolo County Final Budget and amended as needed throughout the remainder of the fiscal year.
The master fee schedule lists all fees and charges for services authorized by individual Government Code sections, board resolutions and minute orders. Changes to fees and charges are made whenever the applicable law mandates a new amount or the cost of providing county services changes. In these fiscal times, it has been a priority to explore every avenue of revenue enhancement. For fiscal year 2013-14, departments were encouraged to review their current fee structure to determine if any changes were necessary or, in certain instances, an entirely new fee needed to be established. All departments that have new or changed fees worked closely with the Auditor-Controller’s office to substantiate these changes and, where applicable, verify hourly rates. The list of proposed changes (Exhibit 1) is a result of that review by the listed departments.
Fees that are no longer applicable are being removed from the fee schedule and are shown as “Delete” on the proposed change list. Adjustments to the previously adopted master fee list are limited to corrections in applicable legal and factual justifications, affirmation of previously charged fees and increases previously approved by the Board of Supervisors.
In addition to the master fee resolution update, per county policy an annual fee waiver report is also being provided to the Board (see Attachment C).
Public Notice
The Clerk of the Board sent notices of the proposed fee changes to the Davis Enterprise, Woodland Daily Democrat, West Sacramento Press, Newsledger and Winters Express and to any parties who have requested copies of the notice. The notice stated the date and time of the hearing and availability of the proposed fee changes in the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors’ Office. Mailed notice was provided to any parties requesting notice in accordance with Section 66016 of the government code.
In addition to newspaper articles, which notified the public of the proposed fee increases, this information has also been made available on the Internet via the county website with notice to 369 subscribers to the County Fees webpage.
Effective Date: The landfill fees will become effective July 1, 2013; all remaining fees will become effective immediately.
Master Fee Schedule
A description of each fee, the adoption and last revised dates, and the county’s authority to collect the fee, is included on the master fee schedule. It is available for review by the public on the county website or by contacting the Clerk of the Board or the county library. In the event a fee is not approved from the proposed fees change list, it will not be included in the final publicized master fee schedule. |