The City of Canyon Lake relies on a variety of technology systems to support municipal operations, including permitting, financial management, records management, public safety, and administrative services. 

To evaluate the full cost of these systems and identify appropriate cost recovery strategies, the City retained Willdan Financial Services to prepare a Technology User Fee Study. The study evaluated technology costs across multiple City departments and identified those costs attributable to fee-based services.

The study identified total annual fee-related and attributable citywide technology costs of approximately $183,874, which support shared systems used across departments, including IT support services, software subscriptions, permitting systems, finance and City Clerk systems, fire technology platforms, website services, and hardware replacement.

Based on a three-year average of fee-related revenues of approximately $648,807, full cost recovery would require a fee of approximately 28%. However, to balance cost recovery with maintaining reasonable and competitive fee levels, staff recommend establishing a Technology User Fee of 8%. This fee is projected to generate approximately $51,905 annually and will provide partial recovery of technology-related costs.

The City also incurs technology costs within the Police Department, estimated at approximately $165,233 annually, representing approximately 7% of the Police Department’s operating budget. Dividing the technology costs by the rest of the Police Department budget resulted in 8% Police Technology overhead factor and would be applied to Police Department fee services to recover 100% of Police-related technology costs. This methodology provides a practical and administratively efficient approach to allocating department-specific technology costs without requiring modifications to existing fee structures.

Because Police services are primarily funded through general revenues rather than fee-based services, these technology costs are not included in the calculation of the proposed Technology User Fee. Accordingly, the proposed fee is limited to recoverable costs associated with City-managed systems that support fee-based services.

Notice of this public hearing was published on May 1, 2026, as required by applicable law.