ESI’S PEER REVIEW FEE SCHEDULE
ESI’s Board of Directors approved updates to the Fee Schedule on June 15, 2022. The new fees went live on July 1. To see the new fees, please click on “ESI Fees by Jurisdiction” at the bottom of this page. The new project applications for each jurisdiction are also posted below and were updated on the jurisdiction pages on July 1.
What is the ESI fee schedule?
On December 5th, 2019, the ESI Board of Directors voted to approve a new Peer Review Fee structure to be implemented on January 1, 2020. The fee schedule is a dramatic improvement and departure from the Pay-As-You-Go system that ESI had been using for many years. The flat-fee system consists of a schedule of services and fees that are used to determine a set fee for peer review for each plan. The fee has been calculated to cover the first two submissions, but may vary based on plan type and jurisdiction. Unless the plan changes substantially during the review and approval process, the flat fee should avoid the engineer from needing to request additional funds from their client, thus reducing delays in processing that were experienced in the Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) system. ESI’s fees for each member jurisdiction are available by clicking the “ESI Fees by Jurisdiction” link at the bottom of this page.
How does it work?
Applicants will download and fill out a plan submission application from ESI’s website, which will then be submitted with their plan for review. To better help our members calculate the peer review plan fees, ESI has developed auto-calculating project applications to aid in determining the required fees for a given plan. The applications have the fees encoded within them, allowing the member to simply supply the features particular to the plan (e.g., jurisdiction, type of plan, number of sheets, whether development conditions apply to the plan, etc.), with the fee subsequently calculated for them. Applications by jurisdiction for use by our members in calculating the MSR review fees for their specific plan are available for download on the corresponding ESI jurisdictional page.
How do I submit payment?
Applicants can submit a check (payable to “ESI Peer Review”) along with their application. In addition to accepting checks, ESI has implemented an electronic funds payment system in order to improve the ability of our customers to provide payment for our services. We believe that this will greatly simplify and help expedite the payment of those funds, particularly for members with clients located remotely, thereby hastening our review services and reducing handling time on the part of our members.
What if I currently have a project under the PAYG system?
Services for all projects submitted before January 1, 2020 must continue to operate under the PAYG system until completion and subsequent reconciliation. Unfortunately, PAYG projects will not be eligible for electronic funds payment due to the nature of the accounting and reconciliation requirements.
Why did ESI move from a PAYG to a Flat-Fee System?
ESI implemented the PAYG system beginning in 2004 (or later years depending on member jurisdiction) as a method to allow a single fixed MSR review deposit. This deposit helped promote simplicity in the application and payment aspect in order to help expedite and initiate the review. If it was later determined during review that additional funds were required due to the size and/or complexity of the plan, additional funds were then requested. Unfortunately, this request and the ability of the member and/or his client to provide those funds often caused delays in the MSR completion as payment was provided. Additional aspects of reconciling and refunding clients resulted in both administrative and cost burdens by ESI as well as delays and further complications in issuing refunds. These challenges, both in payment timing and refund processing, caused ESI to consider other payment systems in order to improve he customer interaction and overall processing.
With many years of experience conducting MSR plan reviews under the PAYG system, ESI had gained sufficient knowledge and experience with levels of effort necessary to conduct these reviews across all member jurisdictions. After extensive reviews of plan review performance on all plans from 2018 over a multi-year period, ESI was confident in designing a flat-fee system that, when tested against prior plan reviews, could replicate the fees charged in the PAYG system. After extensive review and discussion with the ESI Board of Directors, a flat-fee system and fee schedule was approved in December 2019 for implementation in 2020.
It is ESI’s belief and intent that this new flat-fee system will improve our customer’s ability to project and expeditiously provide MSR fee payment in order to enable ESI to commence and complete reviews in a timely manner. Furthermore, it is ESI’s intent that this new system will allow smaller and/or less complex plans or plan types to pay correspondingly less fees than larger and/or much more complex projects, commensurate with the levels of review effort that ESI has experienced on prior and similar projects.
Lastly…
As always, members are welcome to contact our staff if they have questions, concerns, or need further assistance.
LINKS
ESI Fees by Jurisdiction (Effective July 1, 2022)
City of Alexandria ESI Review Program Fee Processing Application (Effective July 1, 2022)
Fairfax County ESI Review Program Fee Processing Application (Effective July 1, 2022)
Town of Leesburg ESI Review Program Fee Processing Application (Effective July 1, 2022)
Loudoun County ESI Review Program Fee Processing Application (Effective July 1, 2022)