HUNTINGTON BEACH : City Urged to Raise Its Fees for Services

A consultant who has conducted a sweeping study of the city’s budget recommended this week that the city dramatically increase most of the fees it charges for various services.

Douglas Ayres told members of the City Council and its Budget Review Task Force that the city for years has been spending more to provide services than it has been collecting in return.

Consequently, he said, the city has been diverting general tax money to subsidize services ranging from issuing building permits to plan checks and structural inspections, among others.

“Every time somebody builds a wall, every taxpayer in the city helps pay for it,” said Ayres, who spent 41 years in municipal government before becoming a private consultant and an instructor at USC. He has made similar fee recommendations to dozens of other Southern California cities during the past decade.

Ayres’ comments came Monday as he presented his firm’s extensive, $220,000 report on the city’s fee structure at a joint study session of the council and the 11-member task force. The joint session was the first step in a nine-month process in which council members must bridge a budget shortfall projected to be $5 million.

Council members and City Administrator Michael T. Uberuaga said they favor a combination of spending cuts and increased revenues to cover the gap.

Ayres’ findings support a view Uberuaga has expressed since he became the city’s chief administrator in February, 1990--that the city is not collecting enough money from users to pay for the services it provides.

“Those who pay should pay in direct connection to what they receive,” Ayres said. “But this hasn’t happened, so money over the years has unwittingly been diverted away” from basic tax-supported services, including police and fire service and maintenance of parks, streets and libraries.

Ayres recommended that the council raise fees charged for nearly every city service, in some cases more than doubling the current rate.

Councilman Don MacAllister, who has long been reluctant to increase fees, asked Ayres if increasing charges might not raise the ire of residents who are forced to pay them.

“Absolutely not,” Ayres responded. “The complaints that cities get from the public are because people are paying and getting bad service. But when you tie an adequate level of service to the rate, the public has paid the price and has been satisfied, in my experience.”