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01/12/2022 07:30 AMThe Clinton Town Council unanimously approved a motion to not charge Clinton based nonprofits a fee for renting rooms at town facilities. Under the new rules, nonprofit entities are still charged a separate fee for custodial duties.
When it comes to the pecking order for reserving space, town boards and commissions are given first priority followed by town department- or town sponsored events. Those two scenarios also state that no rental fees or associated costs be charged. Next on the priority list comes Clinton-based nonprofits, followed by other nonprofit organizations. For-profit entities and private organizations are the last in the priority list and are charged both a rental fee and a custodial fee.
The idea to change the fee structure comes from a Dec. 1, 2021, meeting at which Town Manager Karl Kilduff told the council there had been a request for the council to look at the fee structure for Town Hall. That night the council asked Kilduff to draft a proposal that would restructure the fees so the members could approve the new structure at its Dec. 15 meeting
Due to the multiple rooms and large space available in the building, from time to time the Town Hall is sought out as a destination to rent rooms in for different events. Kilduff said that the fee for these rentals depends on which room is reserved and for how long, but that the fees can range from $50 to a couple hundred of dollars. Kilduff explained that in the past the entities are charged both a facility fee for renting the room and then a separate fee for the custodial duties.
Kilduff said that the total revenue generated out of the rental of the rooms is about $3,000 to $4,000, which he said was not a substantial amount as related to the town budget.
Kilduff said that review of the history of the room rental has shown that there has been an uneven application of fees in the past.
“Looking over the last two years of fee experience, sometimes a nonprofit has paid, sometimes it doesn’t pay, so it’s kind of been up and down,” Kilduff said during the Dec. 1 meeting.
By having a formal policy in writing, the hope is that it will prevent the arbitrary application of fees as has been done in the past.
“It certainly would create more equity in term of the different organizations because currently there is some policies that have been unspoken for a very long period of time and they don’t always get applied equally, so having it on the books would certainly help that,” council member Christine Goupil said at the Dec. 1 meeting.