Elgin to Fund Analysis Team to Determine Fairness of Business License Fees

Council members will meet today, Wednesday May 25, 2011 to discuss the hiring of an outside consulting firm to review current city charges including the city’s business license fees.

If agreed to, the Maryland- and California-based consulting firm called TischlerBise will get two years to analyze city fees for development, water and sewer, fire inspections and business licenses.

The firm will determine if the costs associated with the services provided by the city are in line with the fees they charge. TischlerBise will also compare Elgin’s charges to those of neighboring cities.

City fees haven’t been reviewed since 2002 and council members feel that the technological and economic changes in the past 10 years may have altered the cost for services and in turn the fees charged for these services should change.

“The world has changed,” RuthAnne Hall, budget and purchasing officer for the city, said. “The costs have probably changed dramatically with the economic challenges that we’ve had here.”

According to the Daily Herald, “Colleen Lavery, Elgin’s chief financial officer, said the analysis will be extremely detailed and results will not be reflected in next year’s budget. The earliest point any changes may be incorporated will be 2013 — but that’s just if the study shows a need for change.”

The feedback by residents to this proposition has on the whole been negative. Residents feel that the $70,000.00 the city will have to pay to an outside committee is a waste of city funds. They feel that this is just a way of justifying future fee hikes.

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