100% Area Drainage Funds.

In October 2017, it came to the attention of County staff that drainage area fees totaling approximately $72,000 were not assessed and collected on approximately 200 building permit applications between June 2015 and October 2017 as the result of a software error. Staff recommends that the Department of Conservation and Development and the Public Works Department not engage in efforts to collect these fees on building permits that have already been issued, as the lack of assessment and collection at time of permit issuance was the result of an error by the County and not the result of any action taken by the permit holders. Staff will collect drainage fees from applicants who have not yet paid permit fees nor been issued a permit, but received a fee estimate that erroneously did not include drainage fees in the estimate (staff will be contacting such applicants directly; the total amount of drainage fees that will be due from such applicants is approximately $16,400).  
  
Staff has taken actions to prevent such errors from recurring. The software problem that resulted in some drainage area fees not being collected was corrected immediately once it was identified. County staff has also created an interdepartmental work group to review collection procedures and determine how they could be improved. Recommendations from this work group resulted in revisions to improve these procedures that were documented in a memo sent to staff in the two departments. In addition to using software to help identify projects where a drainage area fee may need to be collected, staff will manually review each building permit application for properties that are in a drainage area to ensure drainage area fees are collected appropriately. Staff will report on these and other process improvements to the Finance Committee.

If the Board does not approve this action, County staff will not receive direction from the Board concerning this matter.