New Audit Released - Franchise Fee Collections

The City Auditor's Office has released a new report covering the City's franchise fee collections monitoring and franchise agreement management.

Franchise fees are payments made by a utility for using the City of Denton's rights-of-way to operate. Additional guidance on calculating City-owned franchise fee transfers and verifying investor-owned franchise fee payments would further ensure payments are processed consistently and made accurately. There may be opportunities to increase franchise fee revenues, particularly from State-authorized video, cable, and telecommunications providers. Historically the responsibility for managing franchise agreements has not been clear, leading to agreements expiring and a lack of readily available information. Detailed findings can be seen in the Audit of Franchise Fee Collections (PDF) report.