• Work and meet with city staff to refine the project scope, purpose, uses and goals of the city’s User Fee Study to ensure that the study will be both accurate and appropriate to the city’s needs. Review project schedules and answer any questions pertaining to the successful development of the study. • Meet with staff and conduct interviews as needed to gain an understanding of the city’s processes and operations. Conduct a comprehensive review of the city’s existing fees, rates and charges. • Identify the total cost of providing identified city service at the appropriate activity level and in a manner consistent with all applicable laws, statutes, rules and regulations governing the collection of fees, rates, and charges by public. • Compare service costs with existing recovery levels. This should include any service areas where the city is currently charging for services as well as areas where perhaps the city should charge, considering the city’s practices, or the practices of similar or neighboring cities. • Recommend potential new fees and charges for services the city currently provides but does not have any fees and/or charges established. Recommendations should be based on industry best practices, or the consultant’s professional opinion. • Recommend appropriate fees and charges based on the firm’s analysis together with the appropriate subsidy percentage of those fees where full cost recovery may be unrealistic or not aligned with the city’s strategic priorities. • Prepare a report that identifies each fee service, its full cost, recommended and current cost recovery levels. The report should also identify the direct cost, the indirect cost, and the overhead cost for each service. • Provide a computer-based model in Microsoft Excel for adjusting these fees and charges for the city’s current and future needs and provide the city with an electronic copy of the final comprehensive study, including related schedules and cost documentation in a format that can be edited and updated by city staff to accommodate changes in the organization or changes in costs. The requirements of the models should allow for: o Additions, revisions, or removal of the direct and overhead costs so the comprehensive fee study can be easily adapted to a range of activities, both simple and complex. o The ability of the city to continuously update the model and fees from year to year as the organization changes. o The addition of hypothetical service area information for future service enhancements, and the ability to calculate the estimated costs of providing the service under consideration (i.e., ad-hoc analysis).
