Finance Committee Agenda and Packet 2025 04 17

Home Browse Search

City Council Finance Committee Meeting Minutes March 20, 2025 Page 4 of 6 Committee Comments: Councilmember Hamlington commented that she would like to understand the history of this topic and asked what prompted the initial statement from Council that we would evaluate permitting fees. The City Manager outlined the background for the committee. Councilmember Cooperman commented that he has the impression that the City made some effort to stamp activities that were Marshall Fire related, at least in the initial stages of the recovery. He asked if there is a system for isolating these activities. The Director of Finance responded that account codes were created to track the expenses, much of which was geared towards seeking FEMA assistance. He also noted that Community Development staff time spent on Marshall Fire -related permitting activities were not tracked separately. Councilmember Cooperman asked how much effort it was to put together the 2018 review of permit fees and if there is a way to do a similar review with less effort specifically for Marshall Fire rebuilds. The Director of Community Development responded that staff recommended to Council to hire a third party to do the review in 2018. For various reasons, Council requested an internal review. He commented that it was a large effort to perform the review. He also commented that he doesn't think a review like this could be done at this time due to the impacts of both the Covid pandemic and the Marshall Fire. A limited reconciliation analysis could be done by a professional consultant. There was an extensive discussion around the lack of tracking mechanisms in place to provide the data to support a full retrospective reconciliation of true costs of Marshall Fire activities. It was agreed that Council and City staff committed to investigate it; however, it doesn't appear that anyone committed that the City would provide any specific refunds. It was also agreed that there isn't enough data to be precise in the estimate, most especially since staff time was not tracked separately for Marshall Fire activities. There was an extensive discussion around the use of a consultant versus an internal estimate of costs versus expenditures. The Interim City Manager suggested that an outside consultant would provide a neutral perspective on what does and doesn't count towards the Marshall Fire costs and expenditures. There was also a discussion around the effort required for Staff to complete an analysis and the question was asked about what Council Work Plan items could be paused to give staff time to do the analysis. The Committee asked staff to perform an internal review, looking at overall numbers of the type in the 2018 report with the understanding that we don't have the data to do it precisely. The important part of the exercise is to take a high-level view of what it cost to run the department and what we collected in fees and let that guide the discussion. Councilmember Hoefner commented that he doesn't feel this is an enormous heavy lift for staff and added that the claim or argument here is essentially that the City has received a windfall from the fire survivors, and it is morally unjust for the City to keep any such windfall. He would like a rough sense as to whether this argument is actually true. Councilmember Cooperman agreed with Councilmember Hoefner. 6/69