A business could have 999 employees or a business could have one employee and the city of Bend would be charging the same amount for a business license.

It currently costs $75 for an initial application and $50 for a renewal. So it’s not all that much. So it’s not a huge deal.

Still, is it fair to charge every business the same?

We bring it up because the city may be raising the rates to $115 for a new license and $85 for a renewal. The city committee, the Bend Economic Development Advisory Board, discussed the possible fee increase Monday.

The increase didn’t seem to cause substantial concern. City staff provided justification for it. The city uses the money it raises from the license fee to help support business growth and provide input into what the city does.

What did cause concern was charging a small mom-and-pop operation as much as a business with maybe 100 employees.

Could the city charge based on the number of employees? Yes.

Would it need to jump through some hoops to do that? Yes.

There would need to be a change in city code. The city would want to have some sort of way to verify self-reported number of employees. Of course, that may clash with privacy issues for businesses. The city wants to look into how other cities do it.

Should it move toward doing it? We think so. Bigger isn’t badder. Bigger does presumably lead to more work for the city’s business advocacy. What do you think?

The other issue is, of course, compliance. Surely there are businesses in Bend that don’t pay the license fee because they don’t bother or don’t know about the requirement.

Ben Hemson, the city’s business advocate, said he may have some ideas about how to change the way the city charges for business licenses to bring to the Bend Economic Development Advisory Board in the fall.