Budget Cutbacks Loom for 2009

I saw on EdHat today that a Noozhawk article points to Goleta Library cutbacks which bums me out as it is one of my favorite places in Goleta. Yet another article on a local MSNBC article points to increases in fees at the County Clerk's and at the Planning Department.

"How does it cost so much to get copies when Kinko's only charges 10 cents," asked Donald Ricketts, attorney for California Public Records Research, a document-management company that has filed written opposition to the fee increase.

Kinko's real cost can't be more than a few cents for a copy. County Clerk Joe Holland is lowering prices on "digital copies" which is more affordable to the title companies that get discs every month....versus individuals who are more likely to pay the following:

In Santa Barbara County, the charge for individual copies of real estate documents is $3 for the first page and $1 for each subsequent page. With the increase, the fees will change to $2 per page. For example, 10 copies under the current fee structure would cost $12, but it would cost $20 under the proposed change.

I like Joe Holland but when he says the fees haven't changed in five years -- I wonder why he would be considering this when the copy fees are high versus the actual cost anyway? That isn't a fair justification for raising fees for something that takes a few moments to copy and very little cost -- even with increases in paper costs. $2 per page -- even at a generous .25 cent cost for the copy, paper and labor -- is eight times what the true cost is. I guess when you have a monopoly, you can charge what you want. What he is really doing is offsetting other costs or future costs with fee increases when he can likely get away with it.