City proposes new fees for next fiscal year
Fri, 2016-08-05 05:00
News Staff
By LYNETTE SOWELL
Cove Leader-Press
At last Thursday’s city council workshop, the council received a full look at the city’s proposed fee schedule changes for the fiscal year 2016-2017.
Fee increases for facilities in the city’s park system include an additional $8 per hour for renting the Ogletree Gap Pavilion, City Park’s pavilion as well as Fester House. The increase amounts to $32 total for the minimum four-hour rental at Ogletree Gap, and $33 per additional hour; $8 increase to the pavilion rental fee; with a five-hour minimum rental cost at Fester House going from $50 to $90 total, with an additional $18 per hour to rent Fester House beyond the minimum.
This fee, said the city’s budget director, Ryan Haverlah, is to cover the cost of utility usage during rental times.
The Parks & Recreation Department is also proposing new fees for tournaments and events, with a sliding fee scale based on the type and length of event at the park. Fees for children under 18 would range from $1-$4, with adults 18 and up paying a fee of $3-$10, seniors age 55 and up paying $1-$5, a carload charge of $5-$10, and a tournament pass ranging from $5-$10.
Mayor Frank Seffrood asked for clarification on these gate fees, with Parks & Recreation Department director Joe Brown confirming that public places in the park are still free to use and that these gate fees would be only to serve as admission fees to special events held at the park.
Another new fee in Parks & Recreation is the registration refund fee in the amount of $5. Although registrations are for the most part conducted online, Brown said, this will offset the time it takes to process a registration cancellation, something that must be done by hand in the office.
For adult athletics, there are new fees for adult softball and adult kickball, which will be $100-$350 and $100-$250, respectively.
Groups wishing to utilize the walking trail in South Park for race/walk events would have to pay a fee to reserve the trail for their events. An all-day rental would be $300, with a two-hour rental being $200, and each additional hour $25.
The Parks & Recreation Department is also planning to institute a race registration fee for its own potential run/walk events in the park, $20 for preregistration and $25 for same-day registrants.
Other fees include a $5 pool entry fee for dogs for a fall event and a $45 fee per team for a planned youth 3-on-3 basketball league.
The “restoration fee” which had much discussion at last week’s town hall Parks & Recreation meeting was also discussed in its entirety throughout the Parks & Recreation department.
Restoration fees would be used to fund repairs for facilities which are user-based. Those fees would be held in an account to be used for those areas.
Cemetery plots would be subject to a restoration fee of $75 for adult plots and $25 for child plots. In aquatics, swimming lessons would have a fee of $2 and those going swimming at the pool would pay an extra 25 cents for admission and an extra $2 for pool rentals.
Youth sports restoration fees would be $2 across the board. Community building rentals are also subject to the fee, $20 for Ogletree Gap, $40 for the Civic Center, $5 for the park pavilions and $5 for Fester House.
Golfers would have a choice of how to pay the restoration fee, either $200 annually or $2 per round of golf.
The solitary non-golf and non-parks fee increase for next year is the cost for garbage collection, going from $16.75 to $17 per month. This would fund the purchase of new garbage collection containers.
The council discussed the proposed $1 per minute commercial waiting fee for blocked dumpsters. Instead, the city staff will bring back a re-call fee for businesses who have to call Solid Waste to return to their location due to a blocked dumpster. That amount has not been set at this time.
The public is welcome to comment on any of the proposed fee changes or the budget at any of the hearings or upcoming meetings.
There is a public hearing for the proposed 2016-2017 budget on Aug. 9, another meeting on Aug. 16 for the first property tax rate hearing, along with a workshop for the EDC budget, and adoption of the long-range plans. The 2nd hearing for the proposed tax rate will be Sept. 6, with adoption of the fee schedule, property tax rate and annual budget set for Sept. 20.