2017 was a busy year for the township’s building department, resulting in a large contribution to the municipality’s building permit reserve fund.
In 2017, the building department issued 366 permits. Septic compliance letters, penalties and other inspections make up the remainder of the revenue.
For the full year 2017, the building department had anticipated revenue of $375,500. The actual revenue came in at $548,646 – $168,067 over budget.
The increase was due to a higher number of permits overall as well as a fee increase in 2017, noted chief building official Patty Wright in a report to Mapleton council on Feb. 13.
Total budgeted expenses for the building department for 2017 were $375,500 and the actual expenses were $330,869. Wright states the difference can be attributed to budget line items that came in under budget and staffing vacancies.
The surplus of $217,776 will be contributed to the building reserve. The Building Code Act states that fees collected are to be used to administer the act and surpluses cannot be used to fund general municipal expenditures.
The act also requires departmental deficits to be funded from a reserve fund and not municipal funds.
“For this reason, the building permit reserve fund was established to provide for capital expenditures and revenue stabilization, as building permit activity is highly cyclical,” Wright explained in the report.
