Regional Building Department announces trade scholarship program, fee adjustment
Routt County Regional Building Department recently announced a new Trade Scholarship Program Fund and recommended a fee adjustment plan for permit/plan reviews within the City of Steamboat Springs for 2025.
Trade Scholarship Program
The Building Department will offer the Trade Scholarship Program Fund through Yampa Valley Community Foundation. The Building Department was approved to use $20,000 to open the scholarship fund. YFCF will manage the funds and will be responsible for receiving and awarding applications.
The Trade Scholarship program will targeting both high school students and adults who reside in Routt or Moffat County. The goal is provide support to individuals looking at a new a career within the trade industries. The Trade Scholarship applications will be released at the beginning of February 2025 by YVCF the same time college scholarship applications are released.
“Our Department has been all ears the last year-and-a-half. We consistently heard from property owners and contractors that we have serious shortage of trade workers throughout the County. The demand for jobs is there, but we don’t have adequate supply of trained professionals to fill the demand,” said Todd Carr, Routt County Regional Building Official. “We want to support students looking for an alternative to a four-year college, or adults navigating a career change. And we want to help motivate them to be successful locally.”
The Building Department will host a Contractor Open House Event to discuss the new Trade Scholarship Program on Nov. 6, at 5 p.m. at Old Town Pub located at 600 Lincoln Avenue in downtown Steamboat Springs.
The event is open to all contractors, trade contractors, design professionals and others who work within the trades who would like to learn more about the new Trade Scholarship Program.
Fee Adjustment Plan
The Routt County Regional Building Department operates as an enterprise fund, it is solely funded by revenue collected for services. The goal as an enterprise fund is to cover the operational and personnel expenditures each year, while maintaining healthy reserves balance to protect the department during recessionary periods.
Each year during the budget process, the Building Department reviews the annual budget and reserves balance with the Accounting Department and Building Oversight Committee. The goal of the 2025 Building Department Budget is to begin slowly reducing the reserves balance.
The Routt County Building Department has recommended a fee adjustment to permit/plan review fees for services within the City of Steamboat Springs due to the fact the revenue collected within the City of Steamboat Springs has been greater than all other Routt County jurisdictions over the past six years.
Beginning on Jan. 1, 2025, the City of Steamboat Springs will dissolve the City of Steamboat Springs Building Permit Fee schedule that has been used to collect revenue for the City Departments performing reviews, inspections and other services to customers applying for building permits.
Instead, the City of Steamboat Springs will collect 25% of all permit/plan review fees collected by the Routt County Building Department in accordance with the current and active permit/plan review fee schedule.
The Building Departments fee schedule will remain the same, however the Building Department will retain 75% of the fees and the City of Steamboat Springs will retain the remaining 25% of the fees collected under our new joint fee schedule.
The new fee adjustment plan is effectively reducing revenue collections for the Routt County Building Department to help lower our reserves balance, and will offer a small increase in revenue for the City of Steamboat Springs, but overall the plan is reducing fees for customers.
The Building Department will monitor revenue collected in all other jurisdictions — the towns of Hayden, Oak Creek and Yampa and unincorporated Routt County — throughout the first six months of 2025. If needed, the Building Department will then propose a fee adjustment within these jurisdictions to be enacted in the 2026 Budget, or consider a similar joint partnership of fees with these jurisdictions.
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