The Costa Mesa Experiment
As you probably know, the City of Costa Mesa has pink-slipped nearly half of its employees. Considering that as of yet none of those pink-slipped employees have included firefighters and only eight out of the existing 139 police positions were involved, you understand that the cuts primarily came from the ranks of the General Employees [...]
Rethinking Animal Control
When our company started doing cost of services studies in the early 1980’s, it was routinely suggested that 50% of animal control costs could be recovered from dog licenses. The other 50% was looked at as a public safety expense to protect the community from rabies. In other words, all residents of the community would [...]
To Outsource or not to Outsource
In these days of budget angst and woe you may be getting pressure from your elected officials or community to outsource services that are currently provided by City staff. But will this actually save the City money while providing the same level of service to the community?
Methodology Utilized in DIF Calculations
Back in 1988, RCS identified two distinct methods for calculating development impact fees (DIFs) and identified them as inductive and deductive. A third method, buy-in calculation, would be limited to public utilities and will not be addressed here. Using fire safety services as an example, the inductive and deductive methodologies are briefly described below.
Keeping Budget Problems in Perspective
I’m writing this on March 18, 2011, or seven days after the magnitude 9.0 earthquake rocked Japan followed by a four meter tsunami that devastated the City of Sendai followed by a still unfolding nuclear disaster as the plume of radiation has finally made it to the West Coast. While we are cutting our budgets [...]
Are “Crash Taxes” for You?
As cities look farther and deeper for additional revenue, some cities have started charging for emergency response to accident scenes. Enough cities have adopted these fees that the media has gotten a hold of the story and dubbed them “Crash Taxes.” Catchy. And, of course, inaccurate, since these are fees and not taxes. But the [...]
Who’s in charge of the DIF Calculation Process
Sometimes I get a bit envious of my partners Rick and Eric. They primarily undertake the operations (fee) service costing and Cost Allocation Plan efforts offered by Revenue & Cost Specialists. I envy them because they always know what department their primary contact will come from the finance operation. I conduct the Master Facilities Plan [...]
Capitalism and Local Government
One of the many nice features of our capitalist system is the ability to vote with our dollars to get the products that we want in the market place. When we go into a grocery store, we have many choices in the products that we buy and we can buy one item or many. The [...]
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