Fee Studies - Cost Identification

"This may strike many readers as odd, but most governments have no idea how much it costs to deliver the services they offer. Even if they can give you a budget figure for each service, it typically excludes indirect costs, such as administrative overhead, capital costs and employee fringe benefits...How can one even establish an appropriate subsidy if one doesn't know the cost of a service?"

- Gaebler & Osborne, Reinventing Government

• Cost of Services Studies

  - Many refer to these studies as (Comprehensive) Fee Studies. RCS prefers the phrase "cost of services" as this focuses the process on identification of "costs" and leaves the choice of what to charge (i.e. "the fee") to the political process. The costs don't change unless staff is directed to change the processes used. The fee can vary based on a number of factors such as: monies available; affected user group; and, ease of fee collection.

• Utility Rate Studies

  - With a Financial, not Engineering, orientation; for any utility. RCS helps your agency identify the full financial cost of the utility and allocate that cost to the user groups. The resulting utility rate structure is designed for ease of implementation and minimal political discomfort.

• Long-Range Financial Plans

  - Also known as Long-Range Forecasts. RCS has a unique approach that ties all of our services together. Fee services and capital projects financed by development impact fees are only considered to the extent that they require tax monies. The primary focus then becomes the forecasting of tax revenues and services. The final report gives the legislative body the tools to see what options are available to them and the financial consequences of each.

Uses:

• A comprehensive and politically defensible master fee schedule
• Insuring that the cost of reviewing new development projects are borne by those projects
• Freeing taxes that are unintentional subsidizing some users so that those taxes are available for services that all taxpayers receive such as Police and Fire.
• Benchmarking and performance measurement
• Demand management and right-sizing

RCS specializes in performing fee studies. Contact us for information about our services, or discover how you can do a fee study yourself using our proprietary software, available through Government Software Systems.