MONROE — After long time evaluation of costs accrued during city events, city officials have begun steps to offset the expenses through permit fee increases and by changing from a uniform $25 fee regardless of the event.
Members of the Finance and Taxation Committee agreed unanimously during their meeting at City Hall Nov. 27 to adopt new fees per event. The full 2019 fee schedule, which has the special event permit costs in addition to other citywide changes, was approved by Monroe Common Council during its meeting Dec. 3.
Alderwoman Brooke Bauman, who serves on the finance committee, said she and other members of the city Public Safety Committee had been considering how to recover more of the cost to contribute city services to hosts of public events.
According to information from the Monroe Police Department, a special event permit is required whenever a planned event “will cause an impact on the safety or resources of the public,” especially if held on public property. Additional emergency services like police or firefighters would be needed because safety might be affected through the interruption of pedestrian or vehicle traffic.
Organizers have to file an application with the City Clerk office for consideration by the public safety committee members before final approval at a following council meeting.
Monroe Police Chief Fred Kelley has said previously that the city has spent years deliberating what to do about the cost of permit fees in relation to the expense of a public event to the city. He repeated the sentiment on Monday, adding that the new fees will likely help recover from 50 to 75 percent of the expense of a public event, with the exception of the large biennial Cheese Days festival. He noted that the large county event likely costs the city between $20,000 to $30,000 in overtime pay for city police officers alone.
It’s not just the cost of overtime to have officers stationed for safety, but the use of equipment and pay for firefighters and city workers, Kelley said. He added that $100 is roughly 20 percent of the cost of having officers cover an event.
Before the proposed changes, any special event permit cost the applicant $25. Within the last two years, the city added a late fee provision of $50 if the application is not returned within a 45-day window.
The proposed changes would call for a different fee amount based on street closures, use of city staff and planned alcohol sales. They would also vary slightly if the event were to be held over a single day or over more than one.
For a one-day event that would not require closing a street or host the sale of alcohol and would not require any staffing there will be a fee of $75. The sliding fee increases to $100 if the event has up to eight hours of staff time for public safety. If more than eight hours, it would go up to $125. The highest fee cost for a single-day event with alcohol and more than eight hours of staff would be $200.
Kelley said the use of a multiple day event permit helps recover some of the cost from applicants who previously just paid the $25 application fee to host a number of events over a season. For instance, Main Street Monroe would only need to apply once for the Concerts on the Square event held over the summer months in downtown Monroe.
While organizers still only need to apply once, the multiple day permit fee begins at $150 for no alcohol, street closures or personnel. Without alcohol, but required street closures and officers, the fee increases to $200 for a multiple day event permit. With alcohol, closures and staffing requirements, it bumps up to $500.
During the meeting, committee member Michael Boyce questioned why the city would not rather recover all expenses versus a set permit fee, which he noted he would prefer to see. Bauman said the public safety committee had decided to begin with a higher fee structure to keep groups who host events and avoid more of “a sticker shock” likely to occur if the city switched to billing for costs.
Kelley said Monday that attempts to recover all costs leads to haggling of sorts between event hosts and city officials, something that should be avoided. He added that raising the costs helps residents.
“It’s become a lot of money for the taxpayers to supplement the vendor, the person who’s holding the event,” Kelley said.
Though Boyce voted in favor of the 2019 fee schedule while in committee, the alderman added he would like to see how the city can recover actual event costs rather than a portion of the expenses.