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As part of this program, a city must build in due process. After a fine is issued, the person receiving the fine can appeal it to the hearing officer at City Hall. The hearing officer is generally a third party chosen by the City, though in some cases it can be the city council. The hearing officer reviews the violation and determines if the fine was warranted or should be dismissed. There are not any statistics readily available on the number of fines that are appealed. An important aspect to note of any administrative fine program is that it is a voluntary fine. This means that should a property owner refuse to pay the fine, there is no way for the City to require payment. Instead, the administrative fines are seen as an alternative to the lengthy and costly legal citation process and meant to encourage conformance before a citation is issued. Most communities issue administrative fines on the second or third letter that goes out to a property for a violation. If the violation is corrected, the administrative fine is waived. If the violation is not corrected, the city could begin the citation process. In cases where compliance is unattained, a criminal or civil citation is often the only remaining tool. For certain public nuisance violations, a city can abate the property and assess the cost of the abatement and any administrative costs associated with it. A public nuisance includes such violations as excessive grass and weed growth, and garbage piles, removal of snow and ice from sidewalks. Parking and sign violations are not considered public nuisances and cannot be abated. In order to use the administrative fine process, the City would need to adopt the necessary regulations to the City Code and amend the fee schedule to include the fines for various violations. Specific violations could also be listed with differing fines for each depending on the severity of the nuisance. Most cities that we spoke with charged between $50 and $150 for the first violation. Fines for subsequent violations increased from anywhere between 25 and 100 percent. The Code would also need to appoint a hearing officer to hear appeals to the administrative fines. Since the goal of administrative fines is to gain compliance, the program would not be a revenue generator for a city, and would not pay for itself in terms of staff time and resources. This process would require involvement from the City Administrator, Community Development Director, City Planner, City Attorney, Building Official and Code Enforcement Officer. While there is not a standard cost for setting up this type of program, a reasonable estimate is $2,500 to $3,500 for the cost of staff and city attorney time. This process would also require a continual dedication of staff time and resources without a guarantee of cost recovery. Until an administrative fine policy is created, it is difficult to estimate the number of fines that would be issued each year and the impact of ongoing costs; estimates gathered from other communities suggest that the range might be ten to 20 fines issued in a given year, of those even fewer are actually paid. Revenue is unlikely to meet or exceed the cost of the program but could vary depending on the fine (e.g. the City of Roseville charges $100 per fine). Since an administrative fine does not guarantee compliance, some fines would likely be converted to civil or criminal citations. There could be savings if an administrative fine prompts compliance City of Arden Hills City Council Work Session for October 19, 2009 I (Metro-inetWrdenh ills lA dmin l Council Ugendas & Packet Information12009W-19-09 Worksessionftcket InformationW-19-09 -Work Session - Admin Fines. doc Page 4 of 5