By Michael Howard
February 3, 2025 (La Mesa, CA) - The La Mesa City Council, during its Tuesday January 28, 2025 meeting, voted unanimously to increase city fees by 24.7%.
"Some fee schedules are increasing higher than normal,” Assistant to the City Manager Lyn Dedmon admitted to the Council members when the increases were presented for their vote.
City “user fees,” which are the fees charged to the users of certain city provided services, are not meant to be a source of revenue, per the city’s policy. Rather, the purpose of the fees are to recover the costs of providing the services that the city provides.
City services range from building permits to city-owned community pool swim passes, along with countless other engineering, planning, public works, and community services in between.
According to a report commissioned by the city to study the fee schedule, La Mesa only recovered 59% of the cost it takes to provide its services in fiscal year 2023-2024. Total costs were $7,626,128, but the city collected only $4,469.581.
According to Dedmon (photo, right), a big reason for the shortfall and resulting need to increase fees so dramatically is due to the pandemic and the increased cost of labor.
“It became clear that the pandemic’s impact on the fee schedule’s time line and overall year-to-year inflation in the years post-COVID, were the primary cause,” he reported to the City Council.
Employment costs have also increased, Dedmon explained. “Some of which the city controls,” he shared but added, “Some, the city does not control like health care and pension costs.” Contracted services that the city hires for various projects have also increased, he said.
Fee increases, however, are not across the board. Increases will vary by the services provided.
For example, a building permit for a building valued between $100,000 to $500,000 will increase a whopping 40%. In FY 2023-2024, the flat fee for a building permit in this range was $1,428.50, followed by $6.40 for every $1,000 increment in value up to $500,000. Starting in April of 2025, when the city’s fiscal year begins, that flat fee increases to $2,380.80 and the incremental amount for every $1,000 in value will be $10.60.
In comparison, the city of El Cajon charges $1,154.94 for the first $100,000 and $6.32 for each additional $1,000 increment in value.
But not all fees went up. Some fees will be lowered, or in some cases, removed. Fees for companies that fumigate, provide dry cleaning services, or that produce, store, or handle cryogenic fluids for example, all saw a slight decrease.
Service fees that were removed include the cost of inspection of day-care and in-home care facilities, mobile food vehicle inspections, and fire-plan checks.
Public comment was limited during the hearing. Only one citizen signed up to speak and her comment was a suggestion to charge a fee for short-term rentals. She did not comment on the increases.
In other actions, the city approved adding a section to the La Mesa Municipal Code to clarify the preemption, or precedence, of the California building code and appointed citizen members to the community police oversight board.
SOURCES
City of El Cajon. (n.d.-a). Budgets & Financial Policies | El Cajon, CA. Retrieved February 2, 2025, from https://www.elcajon.gov/your-government/departments/finance/budgets-financial-policies?form=MG0AV3
City of El Cajon. (n.d.-b). Master Fee Schedule. https://www.elcajon.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/27815/638428996424970000
City of La Mesa. (n.d.). CONSIDERATION OF RESOLUTION ADOPTING A FEE SCHEDULE TO BE CHARGED BY VARIOUS CITY DEPARTMENTS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2024-2025—City Council—January 28, 2025. Retrieved February 2, 2025, from https://pub-lamesa.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=164e18d7-efd1-46c9-bcf7-3339182a746c&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English&Item=51&Tab=attachments
City of La Mesa. (2025, January 28). City of La Mesa Fee Schedule Fiscal Year 2024-2025. https://pub-lamesa.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=17915
MGT Conusulting Group. (2024, May 28). COMPREHENSIVE CITYWIDE RECOVERY CSOST STUDY. https://pub-lamesa.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=17914