The city of Bend estimates there are approximately 10,000 businesses in town and roughly 6,000 have business licenses.

Bend Business Advocate Carolyn Eagan said the number of licensed businesses is growing every month, but “we have some work to do on the compliance rate.” Eagan hopes a recent change in how the city handles these permits will result in more businesses obtaining licenses.

In the beginning of March, the city transferred the job of administering business licenses from the city manager’s office to the building permit center. Permit center employees constantly interact with the public, so there are more opportunities to talk with people about getting a business license. “If you come in for a permit and you’re a homeowner, they may ask who your contractor is and if your contractor has a business license,” Eagan said.

Licenses cost $50 annually and there is a $500 fine for unlicensed businesses. However, Eagan said the city has never fined a business for noncompliance.

“I suspect there will be a time that that changes, where we’re becoming a little more forceful in our requirements,” Eagan said, although she added that the city does not have a timeline for when that will happen.

Through 2009, the city operated its business license program as a voluntary measure and “if you came in for a building permit, we wouldn’t check if you had a business license,” Eagan said.

City councilors said in 2011 they wanted to start more actively implementing the business license requirement, Eagan said. The city uses information from the business licenses for a variety of purposes, such as increasing the efficiency of police and firefighter responses to alarms and encouraging economic development.

The city expected revenue from business license fees to total nearly $270,000 this fiscal year, Eagan said. Among the economic development expenses covered by this revenue are salaries and benefits for Eagan and the equivalent of a half-time employee to administer the license program, a total of $154,000, Eagan said. The city’s goal is for business license revenue to also eventually pay for the city’s contribution to the nonprofit Economic Development for Central Oregon. Currently, the city pays EDCO $70,000 annually from the general fund, plus $13,000 from the Bend Economic Development Advisory Board this year for specific projects.

Tim Casey, President and CEO of the Bend Chamber, said the organization supported the city business license program from its start in 2006.

“The city does need some mechanism for … being able to track businesses in our community,” Casey said. He added that the city requires “a resource for economic development and we think that’s what the business license does and we’re in full support of it … My hope is the folks who don’t have a business license are those that just don’t know about it yet.”

When the city implemented the business license program in 2006, the goal was to collect more information about businesses in Bend, Eagan said.

This information helps the city to operate more efficiently in several ways. Police and firefighters know where to respond if a crime or fire is reported at a business, and they know who to call if there is a potential false fire alarm.Business license data is continually loaded into the 911 dispatch system. Public works employees know when a new restaurant opens, and they can get in touch with the operator to share information about environmental rules and the proper way to dispose of fats, oil and grease.

Eagan said the city is now using the business license data to work with businesses to create a new program that will charge commercial sewer customers their fair share of wastewater treatment costs. Also, the license data helps the city understand the needs of the local economy. Eagan said businesses call her on a regular basis to ask how they can connect with other local companies in their specific industries, or how to connect with other businesses that might want to purchase their products or services. “It really helps me do my job,” Eagan said.

There are exceptions to the business license requirement. For example, Realtors are not required to purchase business licenses, but their brokers are. The city does not require holding companies to purchase the licenses, but the active businesses connected to the holding companies should purchase licenses, Eagan said.