Proposed Local Fee increase for Vital Record Production and Licensing to begin in FY26

Transcript (~7 min @ 9:47)

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▶ 9:45 Robb Stewart: We have a request ID number 1 2 7 9 7. This is a proposed local fee increase for vital record production and licensing to begin in fiscal year 2026. And there were, uh, a couple of attachments that compared the existing fees, um, relative to our surrounding towns. And then the proposed fees. Uh, I and I assume everybody has seen that and taken a look. So, uh, we shall go on under discussion. Are there any questions? Was there any, um, comment from the administration on this? I'm clear.

▶ 10:25 Leila Migliorelli: Should I go, should I go There? No, it's okay if I point of order that's, this is city clerks filing this order. So it would be the clerk, if the clerk had any commentary. If you wanna ask, answer or Yes. Say anything.

▶ 10:38 Speaker 6: So at this point, I just was putting out, um, it's been a while that we have increased fees in the city for any of our licenses, um, or, or certificates that we provide to, um, our local businesses or residents. And with the costs of ink and Bond paper and labor and databases and software all increase in, we still continue to keep our costs at the same amount. And so we were just looking at our costs, looking at our expenses, looking at our, some of our surrounding communities. Um, honestly, just making sure that we just looked at our costs and made sure that we actually are covering, um, bringing in what, what we, what we spend. And so we just came up with a proposal of some fees that we, we feel like should be slightly increased and we presented those.

▶ 11:41 Speaker 2: Okay. Uh, so any questions from, uh, committee members?

▶ 11:50 Speaker 3: Alright,

▶ 11:53 Robb Stewart: So Council Vanderberg, Uh, thank you.

▶ 11:57 Kimberly Vandiver: Uh, chair Stewart, I'm not a member of this committee, but I did want to just comment. Um, the one area I would suggest taking a look at and possibly bump up of them further is the dog licenses. Um, just considering that animal control comes up frequently, I don't know what the cost of that is to Melrose and it's typically dogs would be loose, dogs would be a source of that, um, need. Um, and we also did just, um, have a capital expense for work at the dog park. There may be other maintenance associated with that. And I would just wanna make sure that, you know, to the extent that that needs to be covered, that the dog license, they're keeping up with that. I don't, that's just my comment as a non committee member.

▶ 12:38 Speaker 2: I sure won't do.

▶ 12:39 Ryan Williams: Do we know, um, how much money the dog licenses bring in?

▶ 12:45 Speaker 6: It's, it's on I QM two. Say what? It's on IQM two,

▶ 12:50 Ryan Williams: How much it brings in annually, not how much it costs.

▶ 12:54 Speaker 6: Yes. I, yeah, I have it on there. Okay. If you, I have a hard copy here if you want it though.

▶ 12:58 Ryan Williams: I have, I'm looking at the, uh, the current license fees and the proposed license fees

▶ 13:04 Leila Migliorelli: Point of order. If we're, if we're gonna be asking the city clerk questions, we should allow her to sit at the table and answer the questions fine. Sorry. But if we're not, I don't know what is captured on camera if she is over there on camera or not.

▶ 13:18 Ryan Williams: Oh, I see it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's nested in the main item. Exactly.

▶ 13:22 Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah. There's like six attachments. Yeah. Should I go up the Yeah, sure.

▶ 13:37 Ryan Williams: So we see that the dog licenses bring in about $41,000 a year. And that's under the old scheme of,

▶ 13:45 Speaker 3: excuse me, uh, 15 to 20.

▶ 13:48 Ryan Williams: And the increase suggested is,

▶ 13:51 Speaker 6: So actually, um, it was, it's 41,000 as of today. Yeah. For 2025. Right. The year prior to that was 48,426. So it'll probably be around the same. Okay. Um, my expenses, I mean, you have to look at how many people are touching this dog license. Um, you know, you have animal control touching it. You have city Clerk's Office, you have the Board of Health. Um, so, you know, like, like the clerks at the Board of Health as well. So there's a lot of different people touching this. There is the v paper, there's the, we, we are charged every single year for a maintenance fee for the software. Um, that number goes up depending on how many new, um, dogs that we bring on. Mm-hmm. So that number slowly increases. Um, yeah. So it's just, it just has been a while and we, it's been a while and we just felt that at this time we needed to start raising some of these, raised in some of these fees. 'cause it is time.

▶ 14:54 Ryan Williams: Yeah. I to, I totally agree. Assuming, yeah, I totally agree. So I guess my, my question is, do you feel that the raise goes far enough to cover the costs that you incur? 'cause I know the raise is, is par is in parity with other communities, right? Mauldin's not on the list, but they're also a 15, $20, um, fee. So, so do you think that that $25 is enough to cover the costs that we incur plus the improvements that dog parks and all these, you know, services that

▶ 15:21 Speaker 6: We provide? Yes. And yes. And, and like internally when, when I was meeting, um, with our staff, like, we don't wanna go too far for the residents, but we just felt that would be enough now just to cover some of our labor costs in the increase Okay. In, in the paper and the ink and the software. That, that would be just enough.

▶ 15:40 Ryan Williams: Well, thank you very much for that information and also for the excellent rundown of everything on IQM two and the attachments. Um, I think it's, um, I agree that we should be making our license fees match the cost that they're expected to fund. It sounds like you've done that work and you figured out what that cost would be. So I'm good to leave this, um, to leave this as it is for right now, and I'll

▶ 16:10 Ryan Williams: make a motion to, uh, recommend Second.

▶ 16:14 Robb Stewart: Okay. So we have a motion on the floor by, uh, vice Chair Williams, uh, to recommend seconded by, uh, councilor Roal under discussion

▶ 16:30 Speaker 2: what is, uh, all in favor?

▶ 16:33 Robb Stewart: Aye. Aye. Opposed? Alright. We will recommend this to the full counsel. Uh, that is the last order. Um, without objection. I'll motion to, uh, adjourn.