Paying for Planning

This case study addresses finding the “reasonable cost”, primarily based on Fully Burdened Hourly Rates (FBHR), for a local government when the increase necessary for full cost recovery in fees is not feasible, especially in a single year. The recommendations used two methods of analysis for calculating fees: case study method (standard unit cost build-up approach) and valuation based fees. The identified allowable costs were direct costs (personnel costs like salary and benefits which is used in calculating FBHR), developmental overhead, and central services overhead. Information and calculations are provided for the departments; recommendations for the planning department found that the majority of current fees were below the cost of full service provision with a needed increase of thirty-nine fees and an average fee increase of around 29%.