LEE COUNTY – As part of the county’s efforts to carve out space in the budget under a 4-year state mandate to reduce the general levy to $3.50 by 2029, department heads are taking another look at revenues and expenses.
One of those changes could be increasing permitting fees the county charges for services provided by the county’s engineering department and secondary roads functions.
County Engineer Ben Hull proposed increasing three specific fees at Monday’s Lee County Board of Supervisors meeting.
Hull asked the supervisors to reconsider fees for entrance way permits, utility permits, and dust control permits. He also said he would like to increase the county’s costs for rock as it’s one of the bigger ticket items in his budget.
Hull said his department is essentially loaning the county money. He said his ending balance at the end of fiscal year 2025 is $2.6 million.
“That’s a number that makes me uncomfortable. It’s not enough. Based off of our budget, that’s about three months of expenses on hand. The problem with that is for the last three or four years, you’ve been giving us the rural property tax transfer on the last day of the quarter.
“So at all times, we are essentially, and I want to be careful with my words here because I don’t mean this in any legal sense, we’re loaning the rest of the county $800,000 to $900,000 on any given day,” he said.
He said the county is subsidizing permits where the department is operating in the red and he’d like to make some changes there.
Regarding installation of entrances to private property on county roads, Hull said he’d prefer the county not be in that business.
The county charges a $600 fee for gravel road access installations and maintenance of those installations. They charged $1,300 for paved driveway entrances.
“The biggest one on my list is something honestly I would prefer our crews didn’t have to do and that’s the installation of entrances to private driveways in the county,” Hull said.
Hull provided some data that showed the county spends about $93 dollars just on administrative costs alone. In a sampling of 11 entrances installed in the past year, the county lost $906 per driveway.
“That means were spending about $1,500 recouping about $600 per the scheduled fees in our policy which were set in 2012.”
He said he looked at two paved entrances and the county is spending about $4,000 per entrance and getting $1,300 back.
Hull said the county is subsidizing, on average over the 11 entrances sampled, the county took a loss of about $1,400 per entrance.
“Well, we need to stop doing that,” Supervisor Tom Schulz said.
“That needs to be looked at,” said Supervisor Matt Pflug.
Hull asked if the county would prefer to stop subsidizing them or to adjust the fees, which could prompt owners to look at other options.
“We’re in an agricultural community and a lot of folks do have the means to install their own.”
The county issued 72 permits over the last five years for entrances and installed 23 of those.
Hull said he preferred to have the county maintenance workers on the roads rather than doing the construction.
He said the maintenance of the entrances is the county’s responsibility which makes the cost to the county even higher.
Hull showed that Des Moines charges 60% to the property owner for the cost of replacing an existing driveway of the same size.
Pflug asked Hull if he would like to see the county go away from installing the entrances and Hull said that would be his preference.
“My question, and what I’m hearing is something needs to change, is do you want us to just stop doing it, or adjust the fees?”
Seyb said he would prefer the county not be in that business, because as he’s said with regard to the county health department’s Home Health and Hospice program, there are private companies that will do that work and a lot of farmers have the equipment to do the work.
“This is following the exact guidance I put out there, and this is exactly what I’m looking for,” Seyb said.
Hull said the county would still charge a permit for administrative fees associated with the construction of the entrance ways.
Hull also showed that the county is spending about $253 per 300 feet of dust control measures for magnesium chloride or calcium chloride. They spend $972 per 300 feet of soy-based dust control.
The county received 427 applications for dust control in 2023. Hull said the county has to go out and grade the roads prior to the dust control application.
Seyb said there are additional costs for the soy preparation. He asked what the board thought would be a sufficient fee to charge for each surface preparation, which is what the county does before the dust control, whether salt or soy, is applied.
The county is averaging about 65 applications for utility permits over the past eight years. Hull said the county spends about $177.50 on each permit. He said the county is seeing massive fiber optic investments, which is a good thing. He said recent fiber optic permits involved 38 county road crossings and he said he points those out because they regularly pose a problem in the future.
The county currently does not charge for utility permits and Hull said many counties are actively reviewing that policy.
Hull said some counties such as Clinton County are charging per crossing, and some charge per mile or a hybrid. He said he didn’t want to get charges so high that it would be prohibitive to homeowners looking to have fiber run to their home. He said he would also like to charge $50 for each time he has to go out and review a field installation.
Seyb said there should be some sort of premium fee to the county for the work that needs to be done and for the choices private owners make. However, he said he didn't want it to be cost-prohibitive for safety reasons. Hull said a survey of other counties showed an average county fee of $50 per application. Seyb said the soy should be higher.
No fee decisions were made, but Hull said he had enough direction to plug in some numbers for his budget presentation at the beginning of the year.
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