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some risk and no value in continuing to rely on a charge <br /> schedule that you know is invalid. <br /> 1.1 What is needed to support the City's charges. <br /> The 1985 memorandum from Mona- Mellot provides a good base <br /> point to consider all the factors which must go into <br /> determining the City's charges. It also provides most of <br /> the figures necessary to justify the rate structure that <br /> was adopted. What it fails to do, however, and what the <br /> April 22, 1985 memorandum also fails to do is to establish <br /> the process whereby the figure of $75 per hour was chosen. <br /> As long as this omission continues there can be no <br /> justification for the $75 per hour figure, let alone the <br /> subsequent changes to a sliding scale of $75/$45 and the <br /> additional changes of targeting developed lots and using <br /> property liens to collect the charges. <br /> 1.2 Recovering the City's costs by an hourly surcharge. <br /> The fact that contractor's charge is an hourly charge <br /> may be responsible for the earlier decision to base all <br /> other charges on this hourly rate. This connection should <br /> be abandoned. The City's costs and administrative overhead <br /> are not based on the same hourly rate. Therefore, the City <br /> should either calculate its own separate hourly rate, or <br /> merely add a fixed figure to the contractor's total charge. <br /> Tying the apples of the contractor's charge and the oranges <br /> of the City's charges together will require a great deal of <br /> documentation and is probably not worth the time saved. <br /> The effect of a $75 charge for the first hour and then a <br /> $45 charge for the remaining hours is to prorate the City's <br /> costs according to the size of the job performed by the <br /> contractor. If there are any City costs which are related <br /> to the size of the job, this scale above the contractor's <br /> charge makes sense. If, however, the City's costs are not <br /> related to the size of the job, then as long as the charges <br /> are tied to the hourly rate and change over time, they are <br /> likely to be found unreasonable. <br /> 1.3 Making the connection between costs and rates. <br /> The largest failing of the 1985 memos is that there was no <br /> connection made between the figures showing costs and the <br /> determination of rates. The actual City costs for <br /> personnel that you have provided will serve as the <br /> justification for imposing these as charges. The necessary <br /> next step is a simple statement that it is necessary to <br /> impose these costs to recover them for the City. <br /> 2. Components of the City's cost. The figures that you <br /> provided reflect a major component of the City's costs in <br /> enforcement. The simple administrative finding that it is <br /> necessary to impose these costs on each property owner <br /> 2 -- MEMORANDUM <br />