Maurice looks to increase permit fees for culverts

MAURICE — As most people have noticed, prices have increased in almost every facet of day-to-day life.
Like most people, municipalities have to take notice when adjustments need to be made in correlation with increased prices.
The Village of Maurice Board of Aldermen will discuss such an issue during this evening’s general board meeting. The board will look at increasing the permit fee for installation of culverts to $150. The fee has long been set at $80.
“They will come in and let us know the location where they are going to put the culvert,” Maurice Mayor Wayne Theriot said. “We have to call our engineer out to set the size of the culvert.”
That process usually takes two hours.
“We don’t have on-staff engineers,” Theriot said. “We have to rely on a third-party entity. They charge $45 an hour.
“We are only charging $80 and right off we are paying $90.”
Once the culvert is installed, the party in charge of that installation must contact the village.
“We then have to send the engineer back out there to make sure it was done appropriately,” Theriot said. “There’s another charge.
“That’s why we want to increase the fee to cover those costs.”
Prior to a vote, a public hearing will take place to discuss the potential increase. The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. in the meeting room at city hall.
Theriot said it is necessary to have the permits in the first place.
“We don’t want anybody to impede drainage by putting substandard culverts,” Theriot said. “We have had that happen in the past. Without these regulations, people would just put in whatever they want. That’s why we adopted the (Vermilion Parish) Policy Jury’s ordinance years ago.”
Theriot stressed the move to increase is simply to cover expenses.
“We’re not looking at trying to make money,” Theriot said. “We are just trying to make sure that we don’t lose money in this process.
“We need to make sure that we are good stewards of the tax payers’ money.”