Recently, the Rhino Times ran an article – “Hefty Guilford County Fee Increases On The Way Starting July 1” – because, well, there are some very hefty Guilford County fee increases proposed in Guilford County Manager Mike Halford’s recommended fiscal 2024-2025 fiscal budget. The Guilford County Board of Commissioners has the final say over the official finished budget that will be adopted in June; however, it is rare that the commissioners alter the fee schedule before adopting a final budget.
After the article came out, Guilford County administrative officials contacted the Rhino Times and requested the publication clarify some points. Before getting to that, here are some of the fees that will increase on July 1 of this year for Guilford County residents if the fee table is adopted as is.
In the proposed budget, cat adoption fees increase from $25 to $75, while the fee for adopting “senior cats” will increase from $10 to $50. Dog adoption fees are scheduled to cost $75 rather than the $50 it does now. Building, electrical, plumbing mechanical, fuel piping and gas log inspections, which now all cost $40, will each cost $75 if the county manager’s fee schedule is adopted. Subdivision plan review will go from $150 to $200 per plat, while rezoning fees will increase from $500 to $1,000 per case. The price of playing pickleball on county courts will go up from $12 to $15 per hour.
That’s just a sampling of the new fee increases.
And while those fee hikes will increase the amount of money coming into the county’s bank account, county officials want the public to know that that is not the reason for the fee hikes.
In response to the article, Eddi Cabrera Blanco, the multimedia communications and public relations manager for the county manager’s office responded as follows: “As you mentioned, the county’s fiscal year 2025 recommended budget does include adjustments to the county fee schedule. The recommended changes are not intended to generate millions of dollars in revenue. The county’s fiscal year 2025 recommended fee schedule includes targeted adjustments to align Guilford County’s fees with regional peers, including counties and cities. The proposed changes to the fee schedule estimate an increase in budgeted revenue of $445,000.”
The response from the county then adds that information presented online at the budget website show how the fee increases align Guilford County with the fees of its regional peers.
Here’s just one example Blanco highlighted: “For example, Guilford County was charging $40 per trade permit fees, while the City of Greensboro and the City of High Point were charging $75. This fee adjustment will align Guilford County with Greensboro and High Point, while helping offset additional resources added in Fiscal Year 2023 and 2024 to reduce the wait time for developers to have inspections completed.”
The county lists a number of similar local governments and shows how their fees are comparable with the recommended fees in the manager’s budget. In many of those cases, Guilford County’s current fee structure is lower – or will be until July 1, when Guilford County’s new fee schedule will go into effect.
Still, it would be nice if the county could save money by cutting unnecessary programs and just use as a selling point for Guilford County the fact that the fees in Guilford are typically lower than elsewhere.
The official language in Guilford County Manager Mike Halford’s budget recommendation on the fees is this: “To help balance the budget given resource constraints, the budget included [approximately] $400,000 in additional fee revenue from adjustments aligned to peer benchmarking and cost of recovery.”
County officials say they hope county residents are able to better understand the proposed fee schedule adjustments since the increases will, for the most part, simply bring the fees in line with those of other comparable local governments.
Some particular fee increases that generated a lot of ire from Rhino Times readers were the increases in adoption fees on cats, senior cats and dogs. Many saw those moves as self-defeating because the increases may make it more likely the animals will stay in the shelter where taxpayers will continue to pay the cost.
One responder to the Rhino wrote, “Ridiculous. The process to keep these poor animals alive is already challenging enough. This means more animals will be put down because not getting adopted. With a surplus like this the fees should be lowered.”
Another wrote, “Pet shelters are full and you are asking folks to pay more? The callousness! Why don’t you line up the pets and shoot them. Money grabbing thugs.”
And yet another reader sent in, “Just what we needed, an added impairment for rescuing a dog or cat from their shelter! The county should be paying US for that!”
Good info Scott, but it’s the usual and expected bull from county government. I haven’t heard or read any proposals for reducing taxes. Why not cut excessive DEI made up positions and other bloat or cut out giving tax dollars to a preferred high school? Why not cut out tax dollars to commissioners pet projects? Why not cut excessive yearly school give aways and have schools be accountable for every dollar spent? Why be like other comparable local governments? Try to think and set an example of lowering taxes instead of copying what others are doing. I’m betting many readers will say, leave if you don’t approve. Well, after living here for 25 years that is exactly what I will be doing. I can only hope things will get better for those who have to or chose to stay. Keep up the good work this publication is known for!
This is ridiculous raising adoption fees on an already full capacity animal shelter.
I mean the thoughtlessness of increasing cat adoption fee from 25 to 75 will only decrease future adoptions not help.
Maybe the commissioners should take a few hours to go to the shelter and help hold the cats and dogs down while they are killed – often because they have developed health and behavior problems after being incarcerated in barren cages for months on end. Increasing adoption fees so massively is inhumane and counter-productive. All in a brand new $15m tax funded shelter
They would only do this if it were election year. . .just to get the publicity. See how this works?
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So what’s wrong with our fees being lower than our competitors’ anyway?
Only in the minds of bureaucrats is that a bad thing that has to be “remedied”.
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And any time you hear a government official say “It’s not about the money”… it’s about the money (e.g. red light cameras).
Why is the county increasing fee’s for adopting animals from the shelter? There are so many wonderful animals just waiting for their forever home and increasing the fees really put them at risk of not being adopted and instead being euthanatized. Instead, why not pose a fee (or violation) for people NOT getting their animals or spayed or neutered? This may limit the amount of “unwanted” animals. Also, if people are “breeding” their animals, they would have to pay for a “permit” to do so. If found in violation of not having the permit, they would be fined? If others would think “outside the box” a little bit, they may fine other beneficial alternatives than increasing fees (which is nothing more than “tax and spend” as a certain political party loves to do!
I run a Pickleball League and I pay $3/hour in Durham County and $5/hour in Kernersville for court reservations. Whoever did the research of “regional peers” for Mr.Halford did not do a very thorough analysis. $15/hour is out of my league. There is also only one public park with permanent courts, so these high prices are not going to make any impact on the budget, it will just drive the potential customers to other counties.
Recently you stated that the county received a 92 million dollar windfall with reassessment , so where did that money go? The commissioners want sale tax increase and service fee increase, all with that windfall in come. We need a audit of the county’s expenditures!
“ peer benchmarking”, Did these “peers “ raise property taxes to the point that many homeowners will struggle to pay their mortgage and taxes? NOT
Who cares what other municipal gov’ts charge. The fee structure should be based on the cost the county incurs for the services and for those specific services.
If the city could produce cost numbers by department then by service all would be transparent. The practice of comparing the fees and not cost is an easy cloak over where and what the money is being used for.
Seems the county forgot or doesn’t want to figure out how to reduce taxes and eliminate wasteful pet projects and county governmental bloat. Why?
Why? Because the politicians are the beneficiaries of pet projects and county bloat, either money or votes.
Here we are in the worse inflation in 4 years and Greensboro wants to increase a tax on the people again. This government is nickel and diming we senior to death. Look some of us aren’t as wealthy as some of you on the board. We struggle to make ends meet each month. I think it’s time for you to back off on taxing people. We live on a budget and within our means, so should the county and city government.
Remember all this at voting time. Get rid of all these money hungry people in our government. We need to start over with completely new people. Get rid of these money hungry incompetent people.
Do not believe we should increase fees to “align Guilford County’s fees with regional peers.” Sounds like the county had exemplary employees that know how to NOT waste money and regional peers should align their fees with county fees.
A much simpler solution would be, for example, to note the instances when the City of Greensboro or High Point had higher fees than the County fees for the same “service” and just reduce the County contribution to the Cities by the $400,000. Since the County does not need the extra money at its current fees, they could conclude the City is overcharging, and therefor needs less funds from the County. But of course, that is not how governments, which have become habituated to the free spending of other peoples’ money, think (or budget).
So I steal from the govt by cheating on my taxes? therefore, it’s OK because someone else does it too?
Keeping up with the Jones is such a lame excuse for anything, especially raising fees. This idea is so dumb.
It’s “Keeping up with the Joneses”, TL.
The plural of an English noun that ends in S is denoted by adding -ES. So the plural of boss is bosses, the plural of waitress is waitresses, and the plural of Jones is Joneses.
And the plural of Morris is Morrises.
I don’t know why otherwise intelligent people have such difficulty with this matter.
My mistake, you are correct. I am not an editor.
No worries, TL. We all make trivial mistakes occasionally.
More importantly, thank you for the excellent contributions you make in these columns.
I do not want to be like everyone else. Why do we not want to think we are better. Oh no. That takes common sense and Greensboro and Guilford County have never used this approach.
Skippy boy changing from euthanizing tax dollars to euthanizing living, breathing organisms. $15M animal shelter with increased capacity is about to get overloaded again. Another additional $7M to the old Guilford County Jail with a similar minority participation than the booted GC. Skippy was just jealous that his purebred dogs that live for 8 years tops cost so much more than adopted dogs that live for 15 years. INCREASE TAXES ON BREEDERS YOU SILLY GOOSE THATS WHERE THE MONEY IS.