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EUGENE CITY COUNCIL AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY Work Session: Toxics Right-to-Know Program Fees Meeting Date: January 10, 2005 Agenda Item Number: B Department: Fire & EMS Staff Contact: Glen Potter www. cl. eugene, or. us Contact Telephone Number: 682-7118 ISSUE STATEMENT The Eugene Toxics Right-to-Know Program is funded by fees assessed to local businesses that are hazardous substance users. A state-imposed fee cap of $2,000 per facility took effect last year, resulting in a substantial fee increase for smaller participating businesses while reducing fees for larger businesses. The council directed the Toxics Board to return with a proposed remedy for this perceived inequity in time for the 2005 program billing cycle. In response to the council's direction, the Toxics Board is proposing two methods of addressing the perceived fee inequity. One is an ordinance that would add certain types of businesses to the program, thus spreading the overall fee burden over a larger group of businesses and presumably reducing it for each participating business (the proposed ordinance is attached). As an alternative or in addition to the proposed ordinance, the Toxics Board is also proposing a surcharge on commercial solid waste hauling fees in the city. The Toxics Board voted unanimously to forward both of these proposals to the council, but requested that the council be made aware that the right-to-know advocates on the board prefer to add businesses to the program, while the business representatives on the board prefer the waste hauling surcharge. This is because the right-to-know faction on the board views the current fee situation as an opportunity to require additional public reporting of hazardous substance use, while the business faction would prefer not to see any additional reporting required. A third course of action to address the perceived fee inequity would be to pursue a legislative solution consisting of a repeal of the cap. The Toxics Board and City Council are already on record in support of such repeal, as stated in the City's 2005 Legislative Policies document. A principal point that the City could make to the Legislature is that the fee cap, in its first year, had the effect of increasing fees for 62 local companies and reducing them for 11. BACKGROUND Through the citizen initiative process, Eugene voters amended the City Charter in 1996 to enact the Toxics Right-to-Know Program (the "amendment"). Article VII, paragraph D of the amendment requires that the Charter-created program be self-supporting. Fees have been assessed to each participating business on the basis of full-time-equivalent (FTE) employees working at each business in a calendar year. (Oregon courts have concluded that a program of this type may not assess fees based on L:\CMO\2005 Council Agendas\M050110\S050110B.doc