In a move that has come as a shock to many, King County has proposed significant increases in its fees for farmers markets and some of their vendors.

With increases ranging from 40 to more than 250 percent for the required permits, farmers market vendors on Vashon and beyond are voicing their concerns.

“It’s irresponsible,” said Caleb Johns, who manages the Vashon Farmers Market. “There is no single entity here making a large profit; these are small vendors and businesses providing valuable services and products for their communities. This will have a negative impact on all of them.”

For their part, county officials say that while the increases reflect a more accurate accounting of their time and services, they are aware of the concern and are in the process of exploring possible alternatives.

“It is not our intention to limit access to healthy food or put vendors out of business,” said Becky Elias, who manages the county’s Food Protection Program, part of the Environmental Health Services (EHS) division. “Our goal is for food to be sold safely to the public.”

Under the auspices of King County Public Health, EHS provides regulatory and educational services in the areas of waste and toxics disposal, sanitation and safe food and water. And although the proposed fee schedule includes increased fees for permits across various programs, the farmers markets and temporary food vendors are the hardest hit.

“When you look at the proposal and you see the fees for all of the permits in other categories, and then you look at what’s going to happen to ours, it’s hard not to believe we’ve been targeted,” Johns said.

Of specific concern to Johns and his vendors are are the fees for the farmers market recurring coordinator permit and the two types of temporary food vendor permits.

The coordinator permit, which is required to hold a farmers market, is slated to increase from $502 for the market’s season to $1,162 — an increase of more than 130 percent.

Johns said that while the Vashon Island Growers Association, which is responsible for the market, hopes not to pass any extra financial burden to its vendors, he also isn’t sure how the organization, which already has a thin budget, would manage the difference.

“Our vendors are going to be challenged enough as it is,” he said. “We’ll find some way to cover it.”

The challenge for about a quarter of the market’s vendors will come in the form of a 42 percent increase for a regular temporary food vendor permit, from $281 to $400, and a staggering 264 percent increase for a limited temporary food vendor permit, from $55 to $200. The difference between the two permits is based on several factors, including preparation details, temperature control and packaging.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if we didn’t have to get re-permitted for every venue we want to sell at,” said Richard Thompson, who owns Midlife Crisis Farms.

Thompson normally sells meat and sausages at the Vashon Farmers Market, as well as the Strawberry Festival and the sheepdog trials, and needs both the regular and limited permits.

“Between the three venues and both permits for each, I’m in to the county for a lot of money,” he said.

Patty Freebourn, who sells her tamales at the Vashon and Tacoma farmers markets, would also be affected by the increased fees. She and Thompson both said the proposed increases could force them to cut back on their business by reducing the number of venues they work.

“It’s too much. It will absolutely affect what I bring home. It’s like a double whammy for the food vendors,” Freebourn said, since they have to pay fees to the market as well as fees for permits. “We are small businesses, and maybe it doesn’t sound like much, but this will add enough to the overhead that we’ll work really hard and come out with less.”

The vendors that require the temporary food vendor permits are primarily those that sell prepared or processed food, leaving produce and egg farmers mostly unaffected by this proposal.

Joe Yarkin, co-owner of Sun Island Farm and a fixture at the Vashon Farmers Market, is primarily a fresh produce vendor but usually sells a small crop of lamb meat in the spring, which does require a temporary food vendor permit. Should that fee increase, he said, it likely wouldn’t be worth it to continue selling the lamb.

“When we’re only talking about two or three lambs, the profit would be lost,” he said.

Yarkin went on to say that he doesn’t want to see the fees raised, even though it wouldn’t affect his business as much as others.

“This will really hurt the smallest producers the most, because it will affect their whole business plan,” he said. “The proposed fees are just so disproportional.”

The county has been taking public comment on the proposal since August and has heard concerns from markets across King County, Elias said. Johns said that VIGA and many of its farmers market vendors have submitted their own comments.

The response to the new fee schedule has been so significant that a decision on the proposal has been pushed back, Elias said, and several more meetings were added this month for stakeholders in those permit categories. Elias explained that while there have been misconceptions about the proposal, EHS has received so much feedback that the department is now working on alternatives to present to the Board of Health in December.

“We’ve received a lot of good comments and suggestions,” she said. “We are trying our best to come up with mitigation strategies now.”

While it was never the county’s intent to target farmers markets or their vendors, Elias said, a recent analysis of EHS’s fees found that the county had been underestimating the time these particular permits require of its staff. The last analysis was done in 2008.

“We found that for whatever reasons, the time estimates from that 2008 study were just way too low for these particular permits,” Elias said.

EHS is a 100 percent cost recovery program, which means that fees must cover all of its operating costs, and the division has not raised its fees since 2012. Higher operating costs due to the addition of staff as well as a jump in permit demand, coupled with the need to reconcile the time estimates, have all contributed to the large fee increases.

King County Councilmember Joe McDermott, who chairs the Board of Health, said he is aware of the concern among the county’s farmers markets and indicated it may be possible for the county to lower the proposed fees.

“While we want to maintain full cost recovery, I know the subcommittee is taking another look at what the rate is and what the fees are to see if there are better ways to align the work that the department is doing and in any way lower the proposed fee increases,” he said.

On Dec. 18, the Board of Health will hold a public meeting to hear from EHS regarding the feedback it’s received and any possible changes or alternatives. At the meeting the board will also take public comments for a final time before voting on the fee schedule. A final decision is not expected until after the new year.

“I really don’t know how this is going to play out,” Elias said. “The board might approve it as is, or they might request that we restructure things. … In the meantime, we’re doing our best to come up with solutions according to the feedback we’ve received.”