County fails to adequately plan for impact fee workshop

While we applaud the Hernando County Commission for the proposed action of rolling back impact fees to the 1999 level, it was apparent at the workshop that staff was not in a position to answer some important questions.

To begin with, when the question of infill was brought up, the staff claimed that would require study that they may not be able to do. Planning!

That begs the question: Why wasn't this issues brought before the commission several months ago instead of having only 13 days to fully vet the program? This has been problematic with other important issues that are raised at the last minute and commissioners are forced to make a decision on incomplete and inadequate information.

The question of reduced or zero fees for commercial/industrial was again punted because the staff didn't have the time to fully research the issue before the workshop. That was the area that many believe is the most important as that area is where jobs are created.

Many present at the workshop spoke of the need for jobs, jobs, jobs. But again the staff was not fully prepared to provide the necessary information upon which to make an informed decision.

One good result was the recommendation that buildings more than five years old and where remodeling cost exceed 25 percent (now 50 percent recommended) be exempt from current impact fees.

Perhaps the county administrator should have been ahead of the curve on this and instructed his staff to get busy months ago to make sure all the information was available to commissioners.

On another note, school district representatives failed to show up and present any argument for or against the proposal. We suspect that they will be present at the Nov. 15 public hearing, but we suggest that is most disingenuous of them because they obviously knew that the discussion of impact fees was happening on the same day they discussed voting district changes. They could have discussed current and future enrollment as it relates to current capacity — do we have underutilized schools? — as well as five-year projections for new capacity and the financing that will be required.

What is the amount of impact fees that are used to pay annual debt service on school bonds?

And lastly what is the current impact fee fund balance and anticipated expenditures?