St. Mary’s County Commissioners on Tuesday agreed to entertain a public hearing for a proposal to increase county health department fees across the board.

The Commissioners convened in special session as the county health board, and department employees pitched a 6 percent across-the-board fee increase for all Environmental Service fees.

The last large-scale fee increase for the department was in 1998, followed by a couple targeted increases two years ago, health officials reported.

Commissioner Dan Raley (D-Great Mills) questioned the across-the-board increase approach the health department’s most frequently charged fees.

Environmental Health Director Daryl Calvano responded that the small round of increases two years ago was on a cost-of-service basis and one restaurant fee was actually reduced. During this round the same level of research did not go into each fee category, but the ones that were investigated called for an average increase between 5 and 6 percent.

After a short amount of discussion the commissioners agreed to move ahead with the scheduling of the public hearing required before fee hike can take effect.