In this second edition author Michael W. Bouse shares his in-depth knowledge and first-hand experience with preparing building department budgets. In a career of more than 30 years Mr. Bouse has held positions as building inspector, plans examiner, assistant building official and building official. He also holds a Master's Degree in business administration and is certified as a Certified Building Official by ICC.

From the Preface
Across the United States, more and more taxpayers are demanding that fees charged for local government services not exceed the cost of the services for which fees are assessed. Establishing Building Permit Fees is intended to serve as a tool to assist building officials in identifying the total costs of plan-check and inspection services rendered by their jurisdiction and in developing plan-check and inspection-fee schedules based on those costs. By using the information presented in this publication, local building officials should be able to develop plan-check and inspection fees that will withstand public and political scrutiny.

In the opening chapters, readers are introduced to the concept of "user fees" such as plan-check and inspection fees. Definitions of user fees developed by various professional associations of elected and appointed government officials from throughout the United States are presented. In addition, various legal issues and statutory limitations associated with user fees are discussed. While much of the legal discussion centers on statutory limitations on fees enacted in California, similar statutes have been adopted by other states.

Next, service level issues associated with plan-check and inspection services are discussed in that the level of service to be rendered is directly related to the costs of those services. A discussion of the types of costs associated with plan-check and inspection services is presented, with emphasis on the identification of both internal and external service costs. A worksheet to assist local building officials in identifying total plan-check and inspection service costs is presented.

Four service-cost recovery methodologies for establishing plan-check and inspection fees based on service costs are then discussed. The methodologies are presented in order, starting with simple methodologies and progressing to more complex methodologies. Worksheets are presented to assist local building officials in implementing the methodology the building official believes best meets the needs of the jurisdiction.

A survey of the plan-check and inspection times of 63 randomly selected California cities and counties is presented in detail. The survey effort is discussed in detail, with references to accepted statistical testing procedures given for each step of the survey. The plan-check and inspection-time data obtained from the California survey is presented in the Appendices. These tables are intended to assist building officials in developing plan-check and inspection fees based on the time spent providing those services as obtained from the survey as well as identified service costs, rather than the valuation of construction projections. The tables may be used as guides for other jurisdictions to develop plan-check and inspection-fee tables based on reasonable estimated service time and service costs. States, counties, and cities outside California may use the survey questionnaire and sampling procedures to conduct surveys of plan-check and inspection times similar to the California survey, and Chapter 8 contains recommendations on how the California survey data may be adjusted for use by jurisdictions outside California without having to expend time and energy to replicate the survey.

Second Edition
Since the initial publication of this book in 1998, there have been several successful legal challenges to the plan-check and inspection fees charged by California jurisdictions. A discussion of these recent legal challenges and the resultant court rulings has been included in an update of Chapter 3. Additional information about plan-check and inspection-service goals and performance goals established by local jurisdictions has been added to Chapter 4. Finally, a new Chapter 9 has been added that contains a discussion of the cost-based fee schedules developed by a private-sector firm based on the information contained in this publication and adopted by the City of San Diego, California, and the City of Henderson, Nevada, as well as a cost-based fee schedule developed by a private-sector firm that has successfully challenged valuation-based fee schedules used by several California jurisdictions.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: User Fees; Chapter 3: Legal Issues; Chapter 4: Identification of Building Department Services; Chapter 5: Service Levels and Performance Measures; Chapter 6: Identification of Service Costs; Chapter 7: Plan-Check and Inspection Services Cost Recovery; Chapter 8: Survey of Plan Check and Inspection Time; Chapter 9: Uses of Survey Information; Chapter 10: Cost-Based Fee Schedules; Appendices.

About the Author
Michael W Bouse is the director of Building and Fire Safety for the City of Henderson, Nevada. He has over 30 years of experience in the building code enforcement profession. He has held the positions of building inspector, plans examiner, assistant building official and building official during his career.

Mr Bouse holds a master's degree in business administration from the University of Redlands and is certified as a building official by the International Code Council (ICC). In addition, he is certified as a plans examiner and holds 12 inspection certifications from the ICC.