First of all, I would like to say that I whole-heartily agree with the previous comments posted by Mr. Walker, Mr. Herman, and Mr. Charnley. 

As an AOSE and a small business owner, I've found it to be extremely frustrating in dealing with the current VDH sewage and well permitting fee schedule.  As others have said, it places the public sector (VDH AOSE/EHS) in direct competition with the private sector AOSE.  In this economy who can blame the general public in choosing who will conduct their property's soil evaluation and design their sewage system for the least amount of money out of their pocket.  Under the current fee structure, it naturally drives the general public to apply for a bare application through VDH as it will cost them less money to pay the bare application fee than it will cost them to hire a private sector AOSE and still have to pay an only slightly reduced AOSE/PE application review fee.  I have had many a conversation with prospective clients, spent countless hours of my time discussing options with them, only to have them tell me, "Well, I appreciate you taking time to talk with me about my lot and I'd prefer you to do my work, but I guess I'll have to go with the Health Department since I can get them to do the work cheaper and I'm on a rather tight budget". 

While the applicant my be spending less money out of his/her pocket to apply for a bare application through the Health Department, it comes at a tremendous expense to the state and the VA taxpayer to pay for this tax-subsidized service.  While an AOSE permit application submittal can typically be reviewed in 15-30 minutes for a Level I review, a bare application will require the public sector AOSE/EHS to travel to the site, conduct an hour or longer site and soil evaluation, more travel time back to the local Health Department office, and then another hour or two drafting the necessary paperwork.  If the EHS travels to the site and finds that the property owner has failed to mark the property corners or if the lot is overgrown and needs to be cleared in order to evaluate, addtional time is lost in multiple travels back and forth from the site and additional office time lost in having to generate administrative denials until the property owner makes the necessary corrections.  Once all is complete, a final visit will be required to the site in order to inspect the sewage system installation.  Therefore, most AOSE/EHS personnel would be limited to processing one bare application per day.

The report prepared by L. E. Hamm & Associates, Inc. dated May 2006 recognized that  there is an obvious conflict of interest that has been created between services offered by the public sector and the same services offered by the private sector.  Even though AOSEs are now licensed through DPOR (AOSEs were still certified under VDH at the time of this study), VDH continues to compete for services with the private sector while also serving as the regulatory authority for sewage permit approval.  As stated in this study:  The Virginia General Assembly created the AOSE program through legislative mandate to help alleviate the ongoing problem with backlogs of onsite septic applications.  AOSE regulations were established to govern the actions of the private sector doing public health work.  VDH has oversight responsibility for AOSEs, yet it competes against AOSEs for the same business, i.e., the direct services part of the onsite septic system permitting process.  It competes for these services at subsidized prices that far undercut what the private sector can provide...At the same time the VDH is competing with the private sector at subsidized prices, it also regulates and provides oversight of the private sector functions.

I should also point out that the amount that is being charged in the current fee schedule for various permitting services don't actually correspond to the amount of time or labor involved in performing the service.  In the Health District where I primarily work, the fee schedule also includes local county fees as well.  Still, for an AOSE/PE submittal, it costs $370 for an onsite certification letter with no pump.  Yet, it costs $275 for an actual sewage construction permit with no pump.  Yet, there is more time involved in actually designing a sewage system than drafting the necessary paperwork for a certification letter.  So, what do these fees actually reflect?  Also, as others have pointed out, the difference in fee between a bare application certification letter and an AOSE/PE submitted certification letter application is only $30!  How can the private sector AOSE compete if the cards are stacked in favor of VDH performing the work with susidized prices?

Either VDH needs to reevaluate their fee structure and lower AOSE/PE application fees while making bare application fees substantially higher, or VDH should get out of the soil evaluations and system design services all together and serve in more of a regulatory/review capacity.  Right now due to the economy, VDH has been fortunate that their bare application backlog has been pretty much eliminated by the recession, however, eventually the economic conditions which gave rise to the backlog will eventually resurface to some extent resulting in the re-emergence of backlogs, and unless steps are taken to preserve struggling private sector AOSE small businesses, VDH may find that less private sector AOSEs will be available to help alleviate future backlogs.