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Jul. 25—ROCHESTER — When driving is a big part of your business, rising gas and diesel prices can bring an unexpected roadblock to your bottom line.
When it comes to delivery services such as DoorDash and GrubHub, delivery service fees have increased in 2022 but not due to gas prices. Fees have gone up for these third-party delivery services whenever the driver has a longer than expected wait time for food at restaurants. These fees usually increase if the wait time for food goes over a half hour according to DoorDash and GrubHub.
That is why for some local restaurants, such as BB's Pizzaria, gas expenses for delivery drivers have not been a concern for annual budgets, according to BB's owner Jason Brehmer.
"For my business, using DoorDash and Grubhub the last five or six years has helped my business to thrive without the concerns other pizza delivery businesses have had to with high gas prices," Brehmer said.
The expense of gas for third-party delivery on the job does come out of the independent drivers own pocket. That is why third-party delivery services are typically written off in annual tax reports as drivers fill out 1080 forms as independent contractors with these services.
At the city and county government level. Budget allocations for city/county owned vehicle fuel expenses are on pace to exceed their annual budget.
Karla Strain, finance director for the city of Stewartville, said fuel expenses for city owned vehicles in public works so far this year are on track to exceed the city's planned budget for the expense.
"Right now we have not exceeded our year budget for fuel. We have $49,000 in our annual budget for fuel expenses and have already spent $31,373 of that. Since we are up higher with gas expenses compared to this time last year, we're trying to be as careful as possible as we can with spending," said Strain.
At the Olmsted County Sheriff's Department, gas expenses cover a fleet of 76 vehicles. Patrol Captain Chris Wallace, who oversees the budget of fuel expenses for Olmsted County Sheriff's Office, said the current trajectory of the department's usage is going to exceed the budget, but that trajectory changes as gas prices change.
"The plan is that the budget will be increased for next year with the expectation that we're going over this year," Wallace said. "Currently we have spent $158,000 of the $220,000 of our gas budget which is 71.8% of the budget."
In an industry that literally runs on fuel, Baser Freight LLC of Rochester, have had budget issues fall elsewhere said dispatcher Ulises Gonzalez.