let's go ahead and call to order the may seventh finance committee meeting what do we have on the agenda today so as part of the budget review process for the finance community the department's bring their changes to their fees today we'll be looking at the general fund departments next week we'll be looking at enterprise funds before we get started i do want to remind the committee that we won't hear from community development and public works today as they already brought their changes in march to their fees so with that i think we'll get started with city clerk services manager it's a pleasure to be with you i just have one fee change i wanted to highlight for the finance committee and that is an increase in our fees for the full printed copies of our municipal code this past year our office contracted with an outside codification service for the update and codification of our municipal code so  is now much more accessible it's mobile friendly it's a lot easier for members of the public to search for terms to to pull up code sections and otherwise provides much greater transparency that code is available online for anyone they can print out individual sections or large sections if they did want to buy the entire code then we would be charging this higher amount and that's just higher because we now requests for purchasing it tends to be for outside attorneys or or planners but generally people access the code online and i'm available for any questions if you have any no questions thank you very much very much and next we'll hear from the library director i'll be presenting the proposed fee resolution changes for the library department today the first item are our proposed changes to our meeting rooms currently the library has a two tiered structure where we are doing monday through thursday then friday through sunday we are proposing that we switch back to our full seven day a week being the same amount staff did review like size venues as well as destinations close to the downtown area to make sure that these pricings are both competitive and fair we rent to nonprofits and lowering the fees on the weekend will allow for them to have more accessibility to the space as those are the most coveted times then plaza fees we are looking forward to renovated library plaza and with that we would like to update the fee and again we looked at like sized outside venues to come up with the proposed new fee of four hundred and fifty dollars for the first hour for the library last item for discussion is a fine free santa barbara public library currently the library charges twenty five cents per item per day up to an eight dollar maximum late fee and we are proposing to remove that late fee from our fee schedule on the right side you can see the implications of this the revenue that we generated in fiscal year eighteen from fines alone is not that significant is represents less than one percent of our overall budget for the four remaining zone one santa barbara libraries some of the benefits of eliminating fines increasing patron access to materials and services library fines dissuade users from ever getting a library card in the first place as well as create suspended accounts that then children and families do not have access to the library's services or materials and reducing the inexorable impact of overdue fines what we see when we look at our database is that the users who have high amounts of overd fines that are not being paid back are in our lower socioeconomic areas of the city like the eastside westside neighborhoods so if you have display income you are more likely to be able to pay off those fines but if you're choosing between things like rent food you're not paying the library fines back and improving the patron relationships with the library is also something that we find it very important the library's mission is about education and access information creating opportunities for people and the negative discussions around fines pulls away from this mission we also would really like to optimize library staff time we did a complete time analysis study and discovered that we're spending ten times and on a staff time than we are recuperating any fines generated and so there's really no return on investment for doing this kind of negative and burdensome task i'll be talking more next week about our student success initiative but when we first started talking with the school district about getting every student in sp usd a library card fines were a significant barrier to this implementation of course they see the inequity as well they see that some students would be able to pay fines others not and so the idea of taking classrooms and where there's students who can pay have access and those who can't don't it was not something that they were interested in dealing with and one of the biggest questions i get asked if there are no overdue fines what's the incentive to bring back my materials well we're not suggesting that we are removing the lost or damaged item fees from our fine schedule we're just taking away this daily punitive unnecessary fee and this just demonstrates the administrative language that would be updated to represent that charge for the lost materials and then lastly i just wanted to share with you some of the libraries in our state that have recently gone fine free san luis obispo county and paso robles or within our black gold cooperative and went fine free this year in two thousand and nineteen really do think that it's just a matter of time before most libraries within the black gold cooperative are fined free and i think the city of santa barbara is supporting the mission of our library and creating that open access to libraries is something i hope you support with that that's my presentation and i'm available for questions not a question so much as the comment aye aye very much you taking this step this is something i'm very very supportive of i think it's really important and so i just wanted to say thank you that's where i'm at on this so i have a question about part d collection agency referral yes so currently that exists in the system and you're referring people to collection agencies chair doing is we do have a collection agency that we use throughout the blackgold system yes so what would this change in terms of  that policy looks like before it was if there was forty dollars more do and we're just changing it correct so at this point it is it an amount forty dollars which could be fines as well as lost items so that c forty dollars or just overdue fees now we're looking to the actual items so if you have an item that has not been returned to the library you will then be referred to collection agency for return of that material and what that is you are noticing there's no credit reporting that the library does it's really a automated service that helps us send notification to users that they have materials that need to be returned and you know they're providing that automation for us so it's not the type of collection agency that you would see like that repossess his cars or deals with credit history absolutely not so and they don't actually have the ability to do the credit history a law was passed i believe two years ago that disallowed libraries from going after from doing that credit reporting okay is there another word words of the venn collection agency because i was confused and i don't want people to be confused absolutely where you're collecting is trying to collect the book or the replacement money from the book recovery recovery so and is that something that we would need to review that okay next we'll hear from the police department good afternoon lauri peterson business manager police department this year we're bringing before you quite a few changes across many different areas in the police department in categories for fees fines the first backwards we've done some incremental increases as the years have gone by the expenses for issuing citations processing  licenses staffing time have increased and so we're trying to keep pace with that or catch up there are several different categories and these are some of them the first one that we're going to be talking about is animal control fees and so there are two different types there's altered and unaltered animals and so that's why there are two different ways that you're seeing this the fees are reflected on the left hand side or the current fees that are being paid and then the proposed fees are on the right hand side so at the top end if you have an unaltered animal and you wish to purchase a three year license you're going to be paying thirty dollars more so ten dollars a year basically is the difference going forward senior citizens do you get the reduced rate so it's half the price and you can see that reflected as well in the altered animals what we have implemented or proposing at this time is under the current rate it was basically each year you added the same value of a license so as if you were purchasing three separate licenses what we've done now is given a discount to people who buy a three year license it benefits the city we have less paperwork that we have to handle the person doesn't have to turn stuff in as often as long as their vaccination records our current they'll see that benefit here and that is for individuals who have altered animals so we gave them that benefit going forward and again the reduced rate for senior citizens that you can see that reflected up there we are also proposing  again as things become more expensive replacing duplicate licenses doing a two dollars increase for that actual license and then on the senior citizen side it's an one dollar increase another category that we offer services in is that the animal control officers can come out to a residential home and retrieve a deceased animal for city residents  or also we have gone in and found situations where there were multiple animals that needed that weren't being cared for properly and we did a removal at that point for that there is a fee that goes with that we're looking to just minimally increase that four dollars for just one animal leaving additional animals at ten dollars and then also if there is an injured animal we had the ability to do euthanasia at this point we are still in discussions with the county regarding acquiring the medication needed for doing those euthanasia so we're looking to keep that going forward but that is something that's being discussed right now and then also for our local veterinarians we offer the service of picking up animals from them when their clients decide that they do not wish to pay for the disposal fees related to that animal they don't go to the humane society or go to another service that's provided where their animals are cremated etc so the animal control officers will go out when they're requested and they will pick up additional animals one at this point we're proposing again just because it's approximately an hour's time for an animal control officer to go out retrieve one animal and get it out to the shelter for disposal there we're increasing that by thirty dollars and then each additional animal would still remain the same so being consistent with that and really it's just a service that we offer to the aryans the i believe within the county they have a program that's outside an outside vendor that now provides that service for  them but we would like to continue to offer that as a very reasonable service for the veterinarians who are caring for these one thing that's new that we're proposing is  there are two emergency vet clinics here in town who oftentimes one in particular often is given straight animals people find them on the street and they go and they find the emergency vet and they say here i found this animal and so currently  what they do is they hold on to those animals they'll scan them for chips they'll see if there's an identifier on them try to contact the owner if and that's even if the animal isn't injured they've just been given an animal said hey i found this kitten here they will take care of that animal attempt to locate if possible and then will call us and say hey we've received an animal we believe it was found in the city they gave us this address animal control will go out and retrieve that animal if it's not injured they basically charge us a twenty four hour boarding feed just for having that animal during the time that it was there and and their attempts to find an owner if the animal is injured we have an agreement with them to pay a basic fee of two hundred and fifty dollars so that is to stabilize an animal if it's a significant injury etc it is always up to the veterinarian who is on staff though to make the decision of whether to euthanize or not it's not our it's our animal control officers are not taking that on but we're giving some basic service to be able to stabilize an animal and then decide what needs to happen from there additionally if the animal is there for a couple days until we can actually take it to the shelter depending on its types of injuries we pay the boarding fee for that twenty four hour period so we do incur some cost the two hundred and fifty plus any days that the animal is there what currently happens though is that if an owner is found the owner never has to pay those fees back and so we'd like to start to recover those fees if possible from animals that are returned to their owners those animals that are then given up for adoption and are never claimed by an owner we would still be unable to collect those fees but we're trying to just recover a little bit of that money that's going out the door in order to keep this program going it's really we're very fortunate that the veterinarians are doing this service for us because oftentimes they go a little bit beyond that two hundred and fifty dollars but they're willing to accept that as compensation for that service part of recapturing the funds for animals that are returned to owners is we're needing to work with kanno county animal services because the animals are oftentimes returned to owners out there and so we're working through a process of how to get that established so that when they come to retrieve we know that they've paid their fees and that they can have their animal back so that is a significant change in that we're just trying to recapture the fee that we actually expend so basically on a as needed basis dance permits this year there are no significant changes i just provided you the current information about the fees and rates that are being paid just so you could have a perspective on that driving under the influence response fees this is a fee that were allowed to charge for responding to an incident where it is called in we're proposing a fee increase for this year or for two thousand and twenty and for two thousand and twenty one just an incremental increase again again this really is staff response time to an incident the varying levels of types of service single officer needing to show up versus a full response by both police and fire for a traffic accident etc so that's the varying rates they go across there yeah sorry um so these fees are charged to the person that allegedly was yes driving under the influence well these charges be made regardless of whether the dui was found to be that is correct okay so if someone calls and the person was not driving under the influence they will still be charged these for use um no you would have to if you are arrested for driving under yes yes you have to be actually charged with those whether those charges are upheld or not does not impact this fee ah okay so if they were if the person is acquitted for example they still have to pay these fees they do for responding now this is different uh huh so if the person goes through and it turns out they were able for whatever process proved that they actually weren't driving under the influence they they'd still have to pay these yeah these fees are still do outside that process these are not part of the litigation process or th criminal process this is responding to the incident at hand i can i have a concern with that that the initial call might have been for what what the law enforcement would believe was a dui and then upon whatever process goes through it turns out that wasn't the case that we're basically charging somebody for something that wasn't true or not all of was true but it was not found to be the case if they are found yeah i agree with that but i just don't necessarily agree with someone who charging someone for something that they go through the whole process and it's found that that wasn't the case so i just i'm gonna stay my concerns with it now and then it's gonna come to the full council later i understand so that's just if there's some way we can reconcile that or just have a better explanation because i just have a hard time and that's where i think you were might have been going with a glad the same question i just have a hard time charging somebody a fee for something that they go through the whole court process and it sounds  turns out to be something different than what was initially called  i'll get some additional information you know if you don't mind i want to go back to the dance permits slide the what is the difference between a nightclub permit and a live entertainment entertainment  permit and the reason i'm asking is then the renewal there's actually a difference in the renewal rate for those two even though the initial applications one thousand two hundred dollars you under alarm permits and false alarm fees so annually those who have alarm systems both on their businesses and residential they pay a annual fee to have those systems registered with the city and what that allows for is that the first to basically responses to a false alarm there is no fee charged to those individuals for their false alarm on the other hand if you don't have a registered alarm with the city and we respond what happens is those fees kick in immediately so you no longer have to basically a to freebie and then false alarm fees kick in after that the program is really to make sure that the systems are registered that they're working effectively that there aren't ongoing problems and trying also  reduce the number of false alarms for some of these so as the slide shows we're just increasing five dollars ten dollars and twenty five dollars across the different categories again those who have registered their alarms get the first two at no charge and then three four and five going up from there with the fifth maxing out at two hundred and fifty dollars for non registered alarms the fees start with the first one and we're proposing a sixty five dollars fee which is ten dollars increase and then there that's why that's highlighted is that that should have been two hundred and fifty instead of one thirty under parade and special events we're proposing the increases for special event fees and abc permit endorsement fees the special event permit fees would be going from sixty dollars to a hundred and the abc permit endorsement fee would be going from twenty to forty again just recognizing staff time spent reviewing the applications making sure things are in order some events are larger some are smaller just kind of working out the average therefore spending time reviewing that information we're also upping in the police security reimbursement so when we have staff that are at the county bowl or we scan santa barbara school district events  where they're hired to be there as part of quote unquote security we're looking to match the rates across the board better with what the actual pay is and so that's what the change is there we did a little increase on vehicles as well again maintenance of vehicles and etc has gone up over the years and these haven't been raised in probably fifteen years so we're trying to catch up on that one the last change that we're proposing is in the parking violations section we are proposing to increase all parking citations across the board by two dollars this increase is to basically offset the increases and expenses that we've had for processing citations most often it's for those citations that end up going to late fees and collections and that area because with each  like when the dmv when they're sent to the dmv for collection there's a few that we pay the state for that when they go to the franchise tax board we pay it for that services so in order to kind of help recoup those expenses we're proposing two dollars just across the board for all citations the street sweeping program for street sweeping citations will receive that two dollars increase instead of the police department so kind of assuring that one there and then one of the things that we recognize is that sometimes when you raise fees it reduces people's interest in parking and getting a parking citation so that may have an impact on the revenue that is brought  in but mostly we just want people to not get the tickets to start with in the vial especially in the time zones so that's what we're proposing there overall that change is estimated to be probably in the seventy thousand dollars range it's not a huge financial increase for the department but it does help recover some of those fees that we're already paying for sorry live scans so we provide the live scan services where people come in and basically get their fingerprinting we're proposing to increase the fees just to have that service provided it's always it's called a rolling fee which used to mean rolling your fingerprints but it's still kept that n scan nonprofits increasing there is just by two dollars and then all others by five dollars again just for the staff time we process about one thousand six hundred applications a year for that kind of service and so the across the board the proposed increases are really to help recover some of the expenses that staff has and for issuing permits licenses and citations  questions so regarding the the rolling fee which no they could call it a smashing because they smash with them we just had to go through it as members of the bar all members of the bar need to get fingerprinted and so i think i paid twenty three dollars for my rolling fee  did you guys do a market analysis to make sure you're not going too high where that one thousand six hundred number might be reduced or is part of the goal so and those rolling fees are separate actually from the department of justice fees that are required as well so the fees for having whatever category if it's fbi or doj those are separate and those are state mandated funds and so these fees are just the fee that you pay when it was eighty four dollars out the door right but the local institution collected twenty three or twenty five yeah and ours is going from twelve to or ten for the nonprofit's and going to twelve and from twenty five to thirty so we're in the same range as the counties charging their services they're charging around thirty and then the the private sector they have mobile live scan and all these different services we can be competitive even at a higher price point i think so and part of what the feedback that i've gotten is the quality of the print that you get and how many times you have this you only have to do it once yeah and if what happens is if your prints don't go through we will reprint and process it without that fee because we're you know we want it  the quality to start with and try to get the best success rate and then if there is an error and we we do provide the reprinting at no cost oh great thank you thank you um it's funny chair dominguez i was going to bring up that exact point but to the opposite effect and i i know we both did our life scanning in different jurisdictions and i was told actually that the fee was thirty five where i did mine so i was going to make the comment that we might be okay we'll turn it over to the fire department next just wanted to begin taking an over view of fire departments revenues and i wanted to show you that this chart is showing overall revenues current year what we're projecting for the year and then next year's budget and so we're projecting four point nine million dollars almost five million dollars to be received this year that's six hundred thousand dollars over our budget and that's mainly due to mutual aid this chart basically i comparing the recommended two thousand and twenty budget to the budget from two thousand and nineteen and you can see there's a seventy thousand dollars increase and what we would be looking at particularly today is the highlighted item which is the fees and service charges and you can see we're actually recommending that decreasing by one point four percent to two and a half thousand dollars and now we'll take a look at and overall the fees and service charges represent four percent of our revenues  budget so a small piece and so we'll take a look closer look at fees and service charges and what that's comprised of on the next sli this slide our fees and service charges are really i have about five categories we have engine company inspections building plan checks land development team charges title nineteen inspections and permits we  give out according to the california fire code like i said we're decreasing the land development team charges just by two and a half thousand dollars we get these numbers actually these figures from our community development department and it's their projections and their recommendation so incorporated into the fire department budget we have fire department members go to community development and review plans and for land development team as well so that's how we are involved with that process all other our revenues are are projected to maintain their current levels i did want to mention to you though we have not had a feast study for fifteen years so we have a new fire chief you came in look at it looking at prevention our fees here and he's recommending and we received approval authority to get a fee study done and like i said hasn't been done for about fifteen years and so we'll be contracting with the same firm that's been used by the other city departments and through many agencies and  finally i wanted to show you just what our fees how our fees are changed and i'm get some sample fees here and we're basically increasing our fees by the basically the consumer price index but it's the cost of our services are going up about three three and a half percent so we're across it we're increasing our fees across the board by about three percent and rounded to the nearest dollar and how that affects the public is one of our common fees are inspecting apartments and hotels that first line for a quarter hour it takes and we recommend increasing the feet by a dollar from twenty nine dollars to thirty dollars is that twenty nine dollars per unit or poor the horror our per corrupt quarter hour for that inspection so have you spent an hour and a half at a six unit building it's gonna be six times twenty nine i don't check back with you and how we actually bill that but i think that would be the case yes otherwise this seems low relative to the actual cost of providing that service i mean just rolling out the unit if we look back at precisely and that's why we're gonna be looking at that that few stay is going to be looking at an actual cost and what cost to provide these services and restructuring our fees based on that and that studies coming to us now oh we're so these changes are outside of that process these changes are just an annual change to an increased cost for a cost recovery we're increasing our fees to match that no questions and we're glad to see you're not charging to put out f finance committee chair and members i will talk through a few of our fee changes we have a hundred and eighty six recreation program and facility fees so we be here for a long time i want to give you the highlights which is what we do every year and certainly the fees and charges that are part of your budget package goes into great detail and happy to answer any further questions so for fiscal year two thousand and twenty we're proposing twenty two new fees and i'll talk a little bit about some of them discontinuing for fees we discontinue fees when the program is no longer offered so therefore no reason to have a fee sometimes we eliminate fees because we determine that we don't need them again if a programs eliminated or we might modify them and then we're proposing moderate increases and decreases for about sixty of those fees when we look at our fees every year we consider a number of factors  how do we maximize participation and provide affordable programs so that means we reduce fees in order to increase participation we look at how the program provides the benefit to the community we look at the target  for youth is it for seniors is it for adults and so fee decisions and fees comparisons and changes are made based on ability to pay and then also who we're trying to serve and then competition we're not the only organization in town that provides a range of recreation services and facilities for rent so we often look at our competitors and make sure we certainly aren't above them and often are actually more competitive and then we have to consider cost recovery particularly as it relates to our recreation programs and services we look toward trying to cover at least fifty percent of our recreation program costs so that happens in a number of different ways one of the things that we do do is we charge resident and non resident rates that has been in in effect for gosh probably almost two decades but we this year posing to standardize our nonprofit facility rate irrespective of whether the nonprofit is based in the city of santa barbara or an unincorporated area so they'd be the same some examples of our fee changes relate to nonprofit facility rentals and i'll walk you through some of these to give you a sense of what they are the change there is actually to decrease the cost for nonprofits to rent our facilities for between seven and thirty percent it depends on the location and that brings it down below private or commercial use of the facility we have in some cases increases of up to two percent for indoor and outdoor facility rental rates and really that has to offset the hourly cost the staff that setup and break down the rooms sport field rental fees proposing a seven percent increase to help recover the costs of turf renovation and water and an example of that is if you rent a sports field for eight hours instead of it costing one hundred and fifty dollars it's a hundred and sixty dollars so it's still fairly affordable for a full day tennis permit fees are going up slightly in part related to market comparisons and then to support the facility an example of that is for an aunt for a full year a senior will pay a hundred and twenty five dollars to play as much tennis as they'd like and our facilities and an adult would pay a hundred and thirty nine dollars for as much tennis as they would like the annual pickleball permit fees well fifty one to fifty seven percent looks significant in actual dollars the seniors can play would be able to play as much pickleball  they'd like for fifty five dollars a year and adults for fifty nine dollars a year so it's an increase and that's something that our tennis recreation specialist worked with our pickleball advocates and they support this fee change as well career recreation classes we have some minor increases a number of our classes also increase as a result of the contractors that we hire they seek to increase fees and we had a percent of of what they charge annual arts and crafts show memberships three percent it would go from two hundred and sixty five dollars to two hundred and seventy two dollars and then our nonprofit lease rate is proposed to increase two percent every year it increases just slightly so it goes from a dollar thirty six per square foot to a dollar thirty nine per square foot would be the proposal for next year the fees that i would like to draw the finance committee's attention to relate to the the buildings been closed since december two thousand and seventeen it will reopen in october and so as part of our preparing for this next two year budget cycle we completed our business plan and looked at our fee structure and our proposing new fees related to the pavilion but then also related to the bathhouse level entry the ocean beach side entry of the building and similar to what we do elsewhere we looked carefully at what other similar venues charge what they charge for an eight hour rental is the easiest way to compare and some of them only charge for an eight hour rental either get it for the day or you can't go in for an hour and then we set our fees based on prime time versus less than prime time and versus non prime time so as you can see from the slide we're proposing a saturday rate of forty four hundred dollars which actually the saturday rates as you can see are slightly higher than they were for other days those are generally the most popular we will have a hundred percent refurbished building on the beach available for for families and private parties and various other events to rent when we look at that fee we're actually very much in line with what it would cost you to go to the zoo for example but in the case of the cabrillo pavilion you don't have to use the on site caterer you have more flexibility whereas if you go to the zoo you use the rink on catering and then as you look at the other fees monday through thursday reduced and then an hourly with a minimum to our rental we have a number of different groups that would come in have in the past and we hope they come back where they do their monthly business meetings or their monthly coordinating meetings at the ocean level we have a multi purpose room that'll be available for for use for nonprofit private rentals and the fee is thirty one to forty five dollars depending on the day of the week as well and then we're also planning to put out an rfp to have someone operate the multi purpose fitness room and looking at charging a square foot fee for that as a way to advance revenue from that area and then in the daily entry fee it depends on whether it's a child senior adult or a family member and then we also have a pass system that we're proposing similar to the past system that we use for low spaniels so so buying a pass gives you unlimited amount of entry and a day fee would serve perhaps the casual beach goer who's visiting santa barbara and they want a place to spend the day with their family the ability to take a shower to put things in a locker that kind of thing we have a question is the multi purpose room different from the fitness room yes it is different the fitness room is a room where we are hoping to have private trainers trained people but then also have classes the multi purpose room is a new room one of the things we didn't have in the building before renovation began and that's actually located on the eastern side of the building sort of northeast corner where the men's shower locker facility used to be and so well one of those have classes like dance class or it could very well that room could be used for a training program it could be used for a small group gathering it could be used for a yoga class it could be used for any number of things it's designed to be multi purpose and then the fitness room will have equipment in it as well yes the fitness room w be partially with equipment we need a little bit of space for people if they want to actually do strength training and that kind of thing yes okay thank you no questions so at this point is there any public comment no public comment any discussion from committee members anything else from staff if not all asked for a recommendation to send this to the full council with our approval okay all those in favor say aye aye passes unanimously thank you thank you