Money you spend on fees isn’t meant for balancing the budget.
While some folks can’t afford the multiplying fees in our state, Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch says most fees are designed with a particular purpose in mind. “That has been eroded over the last few years as we know, but for the most part the spirit is still there … that if you’re paying a fee, you should expect to get the service for that fee and really not pay more than is necessary for that service.”
Tuition fees, vehicle registration fees, hunting and fishing fees, and park admission fees, for example, are intended for the deliverance of a specific service. Huebsch says the revenue collected from those fees should not be transferred to the general fund to plug the budget hole, currently around $3 billion.
As a result, he says, there’s been an erosion of public support for such fees. “It is the intent of this Administration to get back to a truly honest budget to where we are going to spend only what we are able to bring in, that fees are going to go to those purposes for which they are collected.”
And, he says, one shouldn’t have to pay more than necessary for that service.
The Senate Judiciary Committee held an executive session Monday to vote by paper ballot on the confirmation of Mike Huebsch and on Commerce Secretary Paul Jaden. Full Senate confirmation is needed. Huebsch was questioned before the committee last week.