-Messsenger file photo
Fort Dodge voters will go to the polls Tuesday to decide if their city government should be allowed to impose franchise fees that would raise about $1.8 million a year to be used to pay for hiring eight more police officers.

Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series examining the proposed franchise fees.

Fort Dodge voters will head to the polls on Tuesday to decide if their city government should be allowed to impose franchise fees that would raise about $1.8 million a year to be used to pay for hiring eight more police officers.

What is a franchise fee?

The city government has the power to grant individuals and businesses franchises to provide services within the community, according to City Manager David Fierke.

MidAmerican Energy has long held a franchise to provide electric and natural gas service to the city.

The city has always had the right to enact franchise fees, according to Fierke. He said those fees are essentially rent that the companies or individuals pay for the use of public property and rights-of-way where their cables, electric lines or pipelines are located.

Currently, Mediacom, which has a franchise to provide cable television service, collects a franchise fee from its customers, which it pays to the city government.

The city has not charged MidAmerican Energy a franchise fee in the past.

What is the current proposal?

The proposal before the voters includes two franchise fees:

• A 5 percent fee added to the electric bills of MidAmerican Energy customers.

• A 5 percent fee added to the gas bills of MidAmerican Energy customers.

It is estimated that those two fees will generate $1.8 million a year.

The fees must be approved by a simple majority of those voting to go into effect.

If the fees are approved, they will be implemented beginning in January.

What will it cost residents?

The franchise fee would add $3.70 to the monthly electric bill of a typical household, according to the most recent figures provided by the city.

It would add $3.15 to the monthly gas bill of a typical household, according to those figures.

That is a total increase of $6.85 per month for average Fort Dodge households.

That total is roughly equivalent to the price of a party size bag of chips or a specialty drink at a coffee shop.

If the franchise fees are approved, the 1 percent local option sales tax now levied on gas and electric bills will be dropped.

Why add a franchise fee?

The City Council has contemplated increasing the 40-member police force for a few years, but has never been able to find a source of money to do that.

Revenue from water, sewer and garbage bills cannot be used to pay police officers.

The Police Department has a roughly $4 million budget, and property taxes are the main source of that money.

The city must comply with state-imposed limits on property taxes. Therefore, without a new source of revenue, the council would have two choices to free up money for additional police officers, according to Fierke. He said the council could fire multiple people from all the departments funded by property taxes or eliminate one of those departments.

“It would take a significant reduction in staff in many departments or dismantling a single one,” he said.