Environmental Health would like to review and make some adjustments to current applicable fee schedules. The individual adjustments are outlined in each of the exhibits. Many of these fee adjustments are designed to achieve full cost recovery. Some of the most significant include:
-
Changing fees associated with vital records to reflect new closed record law and new fees set by the state. Additionally, adding pass-through fees associated with VitalChek kiosks and an over-the-counter fee to recoup costs associated with staff time to verify relationship and retain verification records.
-
A new fee for reviewing and filing each Death record in EDRS. This is a fee that other LHJs charge. It would be charged to funeral homes. Snohomish County has approximately 5,000 deaths per year.
-
Making late fees consistent across all programs.
-
Increasing Food Establishment Plan Review fees from one hour of staff time to two, which is more realistic for the time staff are spending.
-
Adjusting temporary food permit fees to more accurately reflect the staff time it takes to complete them. Low- and medium-risk operations had a slight increase, high risk had a slight decrease.
Many of the changes proposed here are designed to achieve full cost recovery of the staff time that SHD Environmental Health staff are actually spending on these activities. Other edits are designed to clarify or update language. Due to the timing of procedure, the fiscal impact of these changes may not be reflected in the budget proposal for 2021.
In addition to these changes, the Board of Health may want to consider an across-the-board fee increase of 1-3%. In order to keep up with cost-of-living increases for staff salaries, all fees will need to be increased at some interval. The burden of the increase seems to be more acceptable to customers if it is a consistent but slight increase year over year, rather than a larger increase every few years. It is difficult to gage how much of an increase would be appropriate at this juncture because labor negotiations have just begun, and a cost-of-living increase has not yet been negotiated. An increase of 1% (rounded to the nearest dollar) would be a safe assumption and is the current recommendation of staff.
An additional consideration is noted at the bottom of the Vital Records proposed fee schedule. This was included in the packets for Board committee meetings, but was not discussed specifically. Staff would like the Board of Health to consider no longer accepting personal checks from the public for birth and death certificates. This is because we do not discover that a check has been returned for nonsufficient funds (NSF) until after the certificate has been delivered, and at that point, we have no recourse to collect the funds from the customer. We do have an NSF fee and attempt to collect the funds along with the fee when a check is returned. However, even if we are unable to collect funds, we still owe the State their portion of the vital record fee charged. Therefore, accepting personal checks is a risk for SHD in this circumstance. Cash, credit/debit cards and cashier’s checks would all still be accepted.
Changes since Committee Meetings:
EH staff asked the Administration and Executive Committees to consider adding an over-the-counter fee for all applications where online submittal is available. It can take substantial staff time to process an application that is submitted over the counter or in the mail versus online. Land use permits, in particular, require scanning and attaching of several documents into electronic records. There are a number of customers who continue to submit their documentation this way despite having full access to the online version. There was considerable discussion among committee members about the potential equity issues with such a fee, and also some alternative ideas for how this fee could be implemented. It is important that such a fee achieve full cost recovery without exceeding the actual cost of providing services. Taking into account the input from all Board of Health members present at committee meetings, plus further considerations since the meetings, EH staff would like to postpone adding this fee for the time being until some additional data can be collected and other ideas further explored, including receiving input from the Equity Committee. This edit has been removed from the proposed fee schedule.
It should be noted, however, that aside from the over-the-counter fee discussed in the previous paragraph, SHD staff are also proposing a $13.50 over-the-counter fee specifically for vital records. The vital records over-the-counter fee of $13.50 remains in the proposal.
The Food Program leadership were able to have a more in-depth conversation about adding a possible Commissary Kitchen permit. It was decided that additional data and procedure planning is needed before proposing an appropriate permit. The proposed Commissary Kitchen Permit has been removed from the proposed fee schedule. Commissary Kitchens will continue to be permitted through existing avenues for the time being.
The Food Program requires a change in the section related to Manager Courses. As per WAC 246-215, SHD is no longer offering these courses, and so the section must be removed from the fee schedule. However, participants who completed the requirements in 2020 earned a discount on their annual permit fee for 2021. In order to honor that discount, SHD staff propose removing all sections under Manager Courses in the Food Safety Fee Schedule except section (d). The remaining section will be removed next year in order to fully phase out this program.
The Executive Committee requested that staff propose options for recommendation motions that include staff recommendations. Therefore, two options for motions have been provided. The first would result in an adoption of the proposed fee schedule as written in Exhibit A. The second option would adopt the proposed fee schedule, with an additional 1% increase (rounded to the nearest dollar) across all fees.
After the public hearing and public comment is received at the October 13 Board of Health meeting, staff requests Board consideration of Res. 20-24 (Exhibit B) with proposed updates to the Environmental Health fee schedules as part of the 2021 budget process.