Government inefficiency once again the culprit in loss of impact fee money

Editorial

Our recent story by reporter Mike Bates highlighted the fact that the county would not receive $320,291 in impact fees from Oak Hill Hospital due to the recent action of the Board of County Commissioners.

Perhaps it was not action but inaction by the county that really allowed this to happen. The story stated that the hospital applied for the permit on Aug. 5. That equates to almost a quarter of a year for the county to issue a building permit.

Certainly the county knew before Oct. 25 when it was first discussed by the BOCC that something was in the works to reduce or possibly eliminate them. There is no doubt that the county administrator was aware of the situation, but he also failed to speed up the process.

The same department that was involved in the impact fee discussions also had the oversight of the building department that was reviewing the permit. You would have thought that, knowing what might be coming in the ensuing month, it would have lit a fire under the staff to expedite the hospital's permit thereby making sure the fees were paid.

Once again, it looks as though government inefficiency was the culprit rather than the actions of the board of county commissioners.

However, let's look on the brighter side of this story — a new addition to our county's health care inventory to provide the health care we need, new jobs (perhaps up to 100 at $60,000 each) and an increased tax base that will in all probability move Oak Hill up a notch as one of the top 10 taxpayers in Hernando County that will provide hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to Hernando County for years to come.