Impact Fees: Will Our School Board Duck This Issue?
Our Marion County School Board is not alone when it comes to the difficult issue of considering an increase in impact fees for new home construction.
The Clay County School Board voted unanimously on July 21 to recommend the County Commission raise impact fees on new home construction. If approved, the fee on a single-family house would jump from $2000 to more than $7000. New multi-family dwellings would be assessed a fee of more then $3200. Mobile homes would also have substantial increases in fees. Clay County wants growth to help pay for itself. Sound familiar?
Clay County's student population is expected to double in the next two decades to 60,000. Schools are already bursting at the seams. Two new schools will open next month and are already full. The School Board estimates it will cost one-billion-dollars to accommodate new students. Sound familiar?
Clay and Marion Counties are in the same boat concerning the trends of growing student populations and the increasingly expensive costs of new-school construction. For example, a recent ramp up in construction costs has placed the Marion School Board in a significant financial predicament. This was detailed in an article by Brad Rogers in the July 24 Star-Banner.
So what should the Marion School Board do? Our concern is that they will do nothing. Those of us who own property will then ultimately bear the burden of financing the various school construction projects via an increase in our property taxes. Alternatively, the Board may have to propose a further increase in the sales tax allocated for new school construction.
Let’s hear from you on this issue: What should our School Board be doing to address this important issue?
Blog Master
posted by Blog Master @ 8:36 PM
26 Comments:
It’s time for the rich builders and the home buyers (many new to Ocala) to step up and share the burden for our education system. I’m for raising the impact fees. Also, how about some better budget management by the school board? I bet you could easily get 10% out of the school budget and not impact education quality. I question the management ability of those school staff involved in overseeing the school construction projects. May be we need a few less school administrators and more staff with planning and budget skills.
My solution to the school finance situation is to index impact fees based on the annual increase in the median home price in Marion County. This would have meant an average annual increase of 16.7% in impact fees for the period 1999-2005. If the median home price goes down, so does the impact fee. Doubt many builders would support this. However, it might solve the problem of leaving impact fees alone for several years and then having to make huge one-time adjustments. Clay County, for example, is now asking for a 250% increase in impact fees. Imagine the reaction in our county to a request like this!
I don’t need my property taxes to go any higher. Also, the sales tax is already to high. Let’s have the builders start taking a larger responsibility for our growth problems. If they pass it on to the home buyers then so be it. Enough is enough.
Had the School Board participated in the preparation of the Comprehensive Plan, (they refused to participate) they could have required that developers set aside sites for schools in their overall plans. Many counties do this. The Villages not only provided the site, but they built the entire school and gave it to Lake County.
Had the School Board listened when they were urged to impose impact fees, and had they set one at a median price (Osceola 10,000, Marion County zero) of $5,000 per new home, the Villages of Marion would have contributed two complete $12,000,000 elementary schools (5,000 homes at $5,000 each equals $25,000,000). Add in Sptruce Creen South, Spruce Creek Golf and Country Club, Oak Run, OTOW, Heathbrook, all the apartment projects we have . . . well, they would not have any problems. The apartments in SW Ocala represent more than one complete school -- why not make the developer contribute to the cost of those schools?
The problem is the construction oriented school board -- they side with the developers who want YOU to pay through sales taxes, property taxes etc rather than them adding the cost to the price of the new homes -- the people whoa are causing the problem. They will always be short of money as long as they do not make the developers come to the table and pay their share.
And when the school board tells you senior communities do not have to pay impact fees tell them where to go. That claim is simply not true. And seniors do force the county to build new schools -- they require young people (who have kids) to provide all of their services, from building homes to restaurant services to medical services.
pwf
Charles, I agree with you. We need more discussion and cooperation among several differen levels of government to solve this problem. I bet you a pizza that Marion County schools are not better managed than Volusia. As another blogger stated, our school board is in bed with the developers. After all, who helped elect many of the board.
Charles asks ...
"How the heck does it cost $6,000 in Volusia for new schools and only $2000 here? Don't tell me it is better management."
Marion County does not charge a dime for schools -- zero.
The $2,000+ you refer to is charged by Marion County and is structly for roads and fire infrastructure. The City has an impact fee (in effect) in that it charges a sewer and water availability fee and then a big hookup charge when you hook up. But the school system has not one penny of impact fees and you can credit Ron Crawford and Kurt Kelly for this failure.
pwf
The school board members need to think about the future of our children’s education and not their individual political futures. For once, do what is right for the kids and not what is best for the political survival of Kelly and Crawford. I’m not optimistic that anything will get resolved on the financial crunch the board is facing now and in the future. I’m preparing to take another hit on my property and/or sales taxes. This is the easy way out for professional politicians.
So not only does the School Board have a problem with new schools and construction costs, it now must deal with the issue of major costs in replacing school buses. What is going on with the Board’s financial planning? It looks to me like there is no one watching the dollars in and out. What a mess this is fast becoming!!
One thing they never have a problem with is raising their own salaries -- you watch, with all the money shortfalls, they will take another jump in pay this year. And remember, they get twice the retirement as a school teacher, and make as much as a beginning teacher. Ain't this a wonderful country?
Senior citizens are not "exempt" for the responsiblility for our schools. As another person said, many of the people who provide services for seniors do have school age children. I'm a senior and will not ignore my responsiblity for our children's future. We have already educated and raised two, but we do depend on many younger people in this community to support our needs (shopping, medical, restaurants, recreation, etc.). Seniors, lets not cop out on this.
You gotta be kidding me!! Our school board members make as much money as a teacher. I have lived in several states and find this unbelievable. The most I can remember any school board member being paid is $500 a month. Most don’t receive any pay. What a disappointment.
I have just started watching the school board meetings on TV. Ron Crawford is sure a “strange” guy. Could someone tell me if he has any children in our school system? He gives the appearance of not caring at all about what’s best for our kids.
Just so you folks know . . . .
Starting salary for a college degree school teacher is about $30,000. Salary for school board members, with no college degree required, is about $30,000. And believe me, they will vote to increase their salaries again this year, money problems or no. School teachers must be recertified every five years. After teaching for 30 years, teachers are entitled to about retirement based on about 48% of their final five years salary. School Board members, meanwhile, qualify for almost twice the retuirement benefit . . . if a school board member could get re-elected and serve 30 years, they would be entitled to about 90% of their final five years salary. When I did a study of this several years ago, I found 50% of the states pay no salary for school board members, only limited expenses. Florida was in the top five states in paying school board salaries. The only requirement to offer for election as a school board member is they be a registered voter, so everyone registered can offer for election.
pwf
Crawford has no kids and is unmarried. Think he may have a degree, but not sure.
My husband and I are teachers. We have been saving for over three years to be able to buy a new home. We are not making much progress. We don’t want to buy someone else’s problem and that’s why we want a new home. The local house prices, new and existing, are just getting more and more out of reach for us. I’m sure any impact fee increases will just be passed on to the home buyers, making home ownership even more difficult. I prefer an adjustment in sales taxes as the best solution.
We've gotta get the commissioners and school board working closer together on the financial part of our school problems. How about more frequent workshops on school finances? Perhaps 10 minds would be better than 5.
In re: the school teacher trying to buy a new home: I understand that problem. My son faced it last year. But the new homes are the ones causing the problems. Assume you own a home now and build a new one. You sell your old one to someone, either moving up in homes, or moving from the north. Either way, it creates more demand on the school system because the northerners moving down need services provided only by young people. When I was in the hospital recently, I did not see 70 year old nurses -- they were young people, and they are having babies. Take the Villages of Marion -- that's 6,000 new homes bought by northerners who demand services: in restaurants, at WalMart, at Lowe's in hospitals. We have missed the Villages at perhaps $25,000,000 to $30,000,000 for school construction; we missed Dell Web Spruce Creek South, we missed Oak Run, and about 5,000 or more homes at OTOW. Yet the demand for schools (and teachers) increases. How long will it take for the school board to wake up. Adjustment of sales taxes is not the answer. I believe the school system has all it can charge. Climb aboard the impact fee bandwagon -- unless you want to teach in more portables.
pwf
The school financial situation seems pretty basic. My wife and I are faced with a similar but smaller scale decision. We are both retired with a fixed income. We have been putting off replacing the roof on our house for quite awhile. It is now past the point of patch job repairs. Our decision is simple: we must cut back on our living expenses, dip into our savings and borrow the rest. A fact of life for people like us.
Someone needs to step to the plate and face up to the fact that developers are not carrying their responsiblity for our growth problems. I'm beginning to see Randy Harris becoming more sensitve to this.
Increase impact fees is the way to go.
If the school boaard has the guts to recomment this I bet the commisioners will go along with them.
Increasing impact fees seems to be only half of the solution to the problems created by growth. Yesterday, the Star Banner detailed a bad picture of the roads situation. It looks like in addition to impact fees, we taxpayers are also going to have to face an issue of increased sales taxes to cover the problems with our county road system. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that increased property taxes are also going to play a part in the long range solution. Hold on to your wallets folks!
I'm holding my wallet!!! Taxes, taxes......that's the solution to all the financial problems growth is causing.
I just saw Volusia's Impacr fee schedule. For a single family residence in the county, it is
Road $1919.
Fire 267.
School 5442.
parks 545.
(rounded)
Does this mean the cost for Marion's new schools came from operational money? Does it mean that the $5442. in Marion was taken from operational money?
I guess it really means we should not be surprised when our high schools earn "D"s in the state evaluation.
The Volusia situation just shows us how far our county is behind the eight ball. Charles is right, no wonder our schools are graded so poorly. If I had kids of school age, I would be looking for someplace other than the public system. When will our school board wake up?
I agree with other comments that increasing impact fees is only a partial solution to the many problems we have as a result of growth. This week will be a good test of how serious our commissioners are going to be when they review several proposals for zoning change.
I started to watch the county school board meeting for the first time. I just turned it off. What a bunch of thunder heads!
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