ESCONDIDO — The city is considering increasing fees related to development permits, public recreation, and other community services to help recover operational costs in the face of an ongoing budget deficit.
On June 5, the council directed City Manager Sean McGlynn and the rest of the staff to consider where cost recovery levels can be improved to help the city catch up with spending.
According to staff, providing community services costs the city approximately $12.8 million. However, the city currently only makes $8 million to cover those costs, meaning nearly $5 million must be covered from the city’s general fund.
Staff proposed gradually increasing those costs for users, including residents, nonprofits, local sports groups, and businesses — over a three-year period to improve the program’s cost recovery.
Escondido and other cities typically recover less than the full cost of service for recreational programming due to the community benefit of having citizens actively engaged in it. Lower fees also enable more lower-income households to participate.
Staff proposed specific changes, including increasing the city’s Learn to Swim program from $40 to $45 per participant, which is the average cost for similar services across North County cities. The program costs the city approximately $449 per participant, not including pool maintenance.
Other suggested changes include increasing ballfield lighting fees from $5 to $10 and increasing its banner hanging program to advertise community events from $40 to $100.
Staff would approach achieving various cost recovery levels based on the type of programming; for example, recreation would see only a small bump from currently achieving 45% cost recovery to 50% over the next three years. Current planning services would go from 58% to 100%, engineering would go from 71% to 100%, and fire prevention would jump from 62% to 100%.
Building services are currently at 95% cost recovery and will be increased to 100% by next year.
Under the staff’s proposed plan, the general fund would see approximately $1.3 million more revenue in the first year of its phased-in approach over three years.
Councilmembers were not only in favor of fee increases; some suggested going even further.
“We need to be looking at this in a more progressive and aggressive manner,” said Councilmember Mike Morasco. “I don’t care what the rest of the state or area is doing; we need to do what’s best for the city.”
Councilmember Consuelo Martinez suggested completely eliminating the banner program, which costs the city more than $1,000 for each banner. The program is expensive because it requires closing the streets where the banners are hung and using equipment to hang them, Martinez said.
Others, like Deputy Mayor Christian Garcia, favored raising the fees to cover the full cost of the banner program.
Council members also generally agreed on phasing in the increases rather than raising fees full throttle next year to give people time to be aware of the impending changes.
“I think a phased approach is considerate,” Martinez said, noting that while she felt the cost increases could go a little higher as well, the city needed to be careful about increasing fees too high for the city’s lower-income population.
Garcia suggested following the staff’s suggestion to increase the fees as planned before changing city policy to increase fees annually based on the consumer price index, which tracks cost of living rates.
McGlynn indicated he “had what he needed” from the City Council to begin work on increasing fees to better achieve cost recovery. Staff will eventually return to the council for final approval.
