Housing Inspection Department Initial Inspection or Re-Inspection billing method and fees.
Objections to changing to an annual billing system and increasing the inspection fees.
- An annual billing system will:
A. Increase invoicing cost by about $26,000 a year or $130,000 over 5 years. Plus require additional annual follow-up cost to check on those who did not pay from their first invoice.
B. Require the City Treasurer to post the receipts of 4000 checks and update their records each year. It was said the current system needs improving to timely handle the posting of the present 800 housing inspection checks that are received each year, so processing 3200 more checks annually would add additional strains to an already taxed system.
C. Change the inspection fee income to an annual taxing system from a system whereby the income is based on the number of units inspected. This change will allow this past highly inefficient department to continue their inefficiencies with the landlords expected to subsidize them.
D. Increase inspection fees by 150% to 367% depending which recommend fee option the Council chooses.
It is said the main need for the annual billing system is to even out the annual department revenues. Any large variation in annual revenues is probably due to the large variation in the number of units inspected each year. The department management needs to even out the work load so the landlords are not expected to pay for extra inspectors in the years when there are fewer units to be inspected.
2. The present billing system will:
A. Hold the housing inspection department financially responsible for the inspection of all rental units once every five years as is required. This direct financial relationship is a needed incentive for the department to greatly increase its work productivity.
B. Retain the present incentive system that gives a 50% per unit discount to landlords who do not have any housing inspection violations. This saving both the landlords and the city money because follow up inspections are not needed.
C. Receive about $200,000 from the one time landlord licenses registration fees. If the department improves their productivity to same level of that of the Marion or Iowa City Inspection Departments, the current inspection fees plus the added $200,000 landlord licenses registration fees will give about a 73% coverage of revenues to expenses.
At the present time the department does not know the total rental units that need to be inspected. It does not know the number of single family rentals, nor the number of duplexes, four plexes, eight plexes, etc. It does not know how many rental units need to be inspected next year or in each year of the following 4 years to complete the inspection of all rental units in five years. This is not the fault of the present department managers; it is the fault of the faulty software system. Right now all budget and productivity figures are just guesses.
This missing information will be available from the new spreadsheet software system after the updated Landlord License registrations are posted. Because of the lack of needed current information we feel it is a year too soon to change to an annual billing system that is more costly and may very well be scrapped after one year.
3. According to the Housing Inspection Department there are 19,710 rental units in Cedar Rapids to be inspection once every five years or about 3,942 units per year.
A. Cedar Rapids has 5 inspectors to do this. One is the Chief Housing Inspector who also does complaint inspections.
B. If these units were in Iowa City they would need 2.25 inspectors.
C. If these units were in Marion they would need 3.3 inspectors.
The Cedar Rapids landlords do not feel that their inspection fees should be increased to pay for the low productivity of Cedar Housing Inspection Department.
We ask you to keep the same inspection billing system and the same fee that are in effect now.
Dick Rehman, Director
Landlords of Linn County
**Please contact city council to get our point across**
I agree with Dick Rehman that the fees on the proposed Chapter 29 and mandatory Crime Free Agreement are too high. The fees are a problem. I DISAGREE that the Landlords of Linn County should be in favor of the rest of this change. A letter presented to the council indicated that the landlords are in favor of the proposed Chapter 29 and mandatory Crime Fee Agreement.
There are still too many issues not resolved for it to go into law. The proposed licensing of landlords can not be cost effective. The same information could be obtained through a registering/licensing of the property not the landlord. The way this proposal is written it is discriminatory against landlords, there are unfair restriction on a trade, and infringment of constitutional rights. This proposal creates an adversarial environment.
If you are against the proposed Chapter 29 and mandatory Crime Free Agreement, attend the Tues 6-22-10 Council Meeting at Hiawatha. Please wear RED to indicate you want this proposal stopped!!!! If you don’t show up they will pass this into law and we are stuck with it along with the high fees.
If you can’t attend you can send an e-mail to the city Clerk with your comments a.olinger@cedar-rapids.org or wandam@cedar-rapids.org. Please title it Against proposed Chapter 29 and Crime Free Agreement