MISSOULA COUNTY – Missoula County Public Works building division plans to request that the Missoula County Commissioners increase building permit fees as early as June 2022. The Public Works department is funded entirely by building permit fees that are no longer covering costs.
Building Official Dave Larkin said in an interview that current bylaws allow the division to set fees but past practice is the commissioners have been involved in consent with a resolution.
On March 23, Larkin presented options to create more funding for the department to the Bonner Community Council. He plans to take his presentation on the road and meet with other local communities over the next couple of months. He expects the commissioners to allow for public comment regarding the proposed changes.
State statute requires the building division maintain reserves to operate. It costs about a million dollars a year to run this department, he said.
“One of the reasons for the increase in rates is the department is supposed to keep money in the bank for off years,” Larkin stated. “We’re about $350,000 in the hole at the moment. Over the last several years whenever there was a shortfall, the money was taken from the reserve fund, that needs to be built back up.”
Currently the economy and real estate are booming and Larkin feels now is the time.
“The cost of gasoline is going up, the cost of everything is going up, we need to take care, we need to make a step now in order to stop the bleed off of our funding.” Larkin said.
In his presentation, Larkin compared current county rates with the state of Montana. The state charges $75 per hour for an inspector or plan reviewer while Missoula County currently charges $50. An actual plan review fee at the state level is 35% of the permit fee and the County is at 25%. Larkin would like the County to match the state fee levels.
Another change would be to move toward using the International Code Council (ICC) to determine building values rather than the current County valuation, which has not been updated since 2009. “I don’t know about you, but I think the cost of a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread is not the same price that I paid in 2009.” Larkin added.
Using ICC information allows for more accurate valuations since the information is updated monthly.
“Changing fees on a monthly basis is a bit unrealistic,” he said. “We could use it on an annual basis to adjust our fees. That means if the price of things goes down, which quite frankly, I don’t think they ever have, then our fees would go down as well. We still need to make enough money to have people go out there and do what they need to do and keep up with their certifications and pay for trucks, gasoline and everything else.”
“My estimate is that if we were to increase the average building permit fee collected from $3,493 to $4,366, we’ll be looking at $873 additional money that would have to be spent on a given house,” he said. This is based on a new home value of $375,244. Valuations for building permits don’t match market valuations or taxable value, he said. They tend to be much lower.
Also, Larkin would like to add new fees including an increase from $35 to $50 for special inspections, anything out of the ordinary where an inspector must go out on a weekend, after hours, or if a plan reviewer has to have a special training, Larkin said. The plan also includes a $50 re-review fee of any plans for each re-review.
“Right at the moment, we don’t charge them anything for that, There’s a lot of things that we’ve been doing over the years where we haven’t charged”, Larkin said. “It’s probably one of the reasons that we’ve lost as much money as we have over the years.”
Larkin would also like to see the department charge a different fee for commercial projects. Currently, they are treated the same as residential but tend to be more complex, he said.
The increase in fees is expected to build the reserve back up to mandated levels, allow for training and some raises within the department. Larkins’s goal is to maintain all multi-discipline certified inspectors so one person can sign off on several inspections, ie: plumbing, electrical, etc.
“The thing about Missoula County is that when I send somebody out to do an inspection, you’re traveling 40, 50, 60 miles in one direction. You don’t want somebody who’s just going to come out and do an electrical inspection,” Larkin said in an interview. “Then the next day, maybe have a different person come out to do the building inspection. All our people are our multi-discipline inspectors, they have a total of four disciplines. That’s pretty unique.”
Larkin wants his department to work with builders as navigators. “We can typically help the contractor go from a place of maybe not being approved to coming up with a route to help him out and keep the job moving,” he said.
Larkin can be reached at 406-258-3723, email dlarkin@missoulacounty.us. The website will have details regarding scheduled presentations once the calendar has been established at missoulacounty.us/publicworks. To watch the Bonner Community Council presentation visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtIMuNAY9kU.
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