Businesses balking at Indianapolis fee proposal

The new year could bring substantially higher fees to businesses that are licensed by the city under a plan to shift the
cost of such licenses to the users.

The move is drawing criticism from businesses.

"I haven’t heard
anyone supportive of it," said Jean Farison, manager of business advocacy for the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce.
"We need to be encouraging our businesses to grow, not adding new user fees or taxes."

The Indianapolis
Star reports some fees would go up hundreds of dollars. Fees for taxi inspections, for example, would go from $100 to
$471. Licenses for trash haulers would go from $20 to $479. Hotels that now pay $20 would pay $603.

Homeowners
and builders also would face higher fees for building inspections and zoning variances.

Mayor Greg Ballard’s idea
is to change the way such licenses are funded. Instead of subsidizing inspections with tax money, he wants to shift the cost
to those who receive the service.

Ballard also wants the city’s zoning and building inspection services to be fee-based,
rather than paid for by property taxes, said Mike Peoni, administrator of the Division of Planning.

The city calculated
the higher fees with the help of an accounting firm that determined what inspections and other business services actually
cost the city to carry out, said Nicole Randol, deputy director of the Office of Code Enforcement.

Officials don’t
know how much more revenue the higher fees will generate. Officials hope the hikes would at least offset the impact of the
new statewide property tax caps.

The changes have yet to be approved by the City-County Council.

Phil
Ray, general manager of the Omni Severin Hotel in downtown Indianapolis, said he can’t recall his hotel ever undergoing a
city inspection, though it undergoes regular inspections by his hotel brand and travel groups such as AAA.

"It’s
just another burden coming down to hotels … coming off one of our toughest years ever," he said. "Ultimately,
that ends up getting passed on to our guests at some point."

Randol said the new Office of Code Enforcement
has about 50 inspectors to do the work of checking licensed businesses, compared with one inspector for the old agency that
formerly handled inspections.

Steve Lains, chief executive of the Builders Association of Greater Indianapolis,
said contractors find the fee hikes "hard to swallow."

General construction inspections would rise from
$40-$50 to $107. Zoning variances for homes would go from $200 to $579.

"The city should be finding ways to
hold costs down," Lains said. "The fee increase runs counter to the objective of encouraging economic growth and
recovery."