As a landlord who rents his house out in the summer, Mills said, “My rental tenants come into town and they use our beach, they walk the Boardwalk, they use our trashcans, restrooms. They are getting that for free basically. So I look at increasing the rental fee as a way of compensating for that.”

Mills said the fee could be raised all at once or incrementally. Another suggestion was creating an accommodations fee on hotels. While hotels do pay an 8 percent accommodations tax, that money goes to the county. The only money anyone in the city receives is one-half of 1 percent of the 8 percent tax going to the Rehoboth Beach-Dewey Beach Chamber of Commerce.

Mayor Sam Cooper said another part of the 8 percent tax goes to beach replenishment. He said the city cannot increase or impose a separate tax on accommodations but can apply a gross receipts tax.

Other suggestions Mills made included increasing water, sewer and refuse rates and creating a commercial rental fee.

On the latter, Mills said, “A landlord that owns a building, and all he does is rent that out to a restaurateur, is paying a fee to do that but he doesn’t pay any tax or subsidy to the town.”

Cooper proposed increasing the real estate tax but also making the tax variable, so it could be rolled back whenever the economy improves.

“While in my heart I don’t think we’re going to get out of this financial thing in six months or a year or 18 months,” Cooper said, “I wouldn’t want to create a whole lot of new revenue and be overrun with money and people complaining. Although, clearly, we’ve taken a hit the last few years. We need to build back the revenue in reserve.”

The commissioners did not suggest raising parking meter rates. City Manager Greg Ferrese did suggest extending the parking meter season two more weeks to the end of September.

“That’s $80,000 to $100,000 in revenue,” he said.

Cooper said, “My big problem with extending the meter season is you don’t need 2,200 meters on a weekday in October. You’re not taking revenue, you’re dispersing people to areas where they are not wanted.”

Commissioner Willis Sargent suggested budgeting revenue more conservatively in the next budget, particularly in regard to transfer tax revenue, which has been up and down for the city all year.

Cooper said, “The last couple years have been a challenge. We are in a challenging time, but I don’t expect us to spend at the same level as we did two or three years ago. Is this a long-term reset of the economy, or is this a downturn that will straighten itself out?”

The commissioners will continue discussion of revenue sources and the state of the city’s budget at the workshop meeting, 1:30 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 2, in the city commissioners’ room.