San Diego is facing a budget shortfall, and now it’s considering raising the price of nearly every fee charged by the city, reports NBC 7’s Joe Little.
Renting a boat, updating your fishing license, paying a library fine and most other fees in the city of San Diego could go up in 2025.
The city council is considering fee increases to help fill a roughly $250 million budget shortfall.
Not everyone was excited.
“People are just struggling,” said Laurel McFarlane, president and CEO of McFarlane Promotions.
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McFarlane's company plans and executes large events for corporations and nonprofits in the San Diego area. She said that, in some instances, the fees her clients would have to pay for San Diego police officers would be triple what the hourly rates were two years ago.
“If it was your home and your insurance that said they're doubling or tripling your policy, you would be devastated,” McFarlane said.
Prices would jump tens of thousands of dollars for large events like San Diego Padres games and San Diego Pride, where police and traffic control are needed.
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McFarlane said the hourly fee for one police officer could jump from $55 an hour to $154 an hour in the last three years.
“Yes, our costs have gone up,” District 9 Councilman Sean Elo-Rivera said.
The councilman said the city needs to fill a quarter-billion deficit and that, historically, city fees have not kept up with the cost of doing business.
“There are fees that haven't been increased for a very, very long time,” Elo-Rivera said. “That's not going to close the budget gap completely, but it's going to reduce it.”
“That's not the way to balance the budget,” McFarlane said, rolling her eyes.
McFarlane said fee increases would hurt nonprofits the most.
“A lot of these are nonprofits that count on these events for money,” McFarlane explained. “They just can't continue. It's astronomical.”
Elo-Rivera argued that, while fees should be raised, they should be raised most for out-of-towners who don’t buy into the system through regular taxes. He wanted to “make sure that visitors to the city are paying the full cost for that service that is being provided to them.”
McFarlane wasn’t buying it, and she’s not sure her clients can afford to buy it, either.
“I don't think they [the City Council has] gotten together a group of community leaders, nonprofits and sat and had these really thoughtful conversations," McFarlane said.
Councilman Kent Lee agreed.
“The city should minimize subsidies to private parties," Lee said in a statement sent Thursday to NBC 7. "Nonprofit and community organizations, however, don’t have the same resources, so the city should minimize the impacts of fee increases on these groups. This is happening at the same time the city will likely be cutting back on community and arts grants, so we have to be mindful of not putting too much strain on the organizations that make up the cultural fabric of San Diego.”
Elo-Rivera said the fee increases, if approved, could be implemented by this summer.
