The Lake County School District plan to delay education impact fees was derailed today. IThe School Board recently voted to allow builders to pay education impact fees at the time when the construction was complete (called the Certificate of Occupancy date or "CO") , rather than when permits were filed.
The plan would have let builders wait to pay the average $8,000 or more education impact fee about 6-10 months later in the building process and improve their cash flow.
However, that plan was derailed today at the Lake County Impact Committee meeting (which I attended) when the County staff said the administration costs were too high unless ALL impact fee collections were changed to the same method. The School Board representative on the committee, CFO Carol MacLeod said she will take the issue back to the School Board for review. But, it seemed that the County staffer in charge (Angie Thompson) of Impact fee administration did not want to do it, and no one asked for an estimate of the potential cost, thus the issue died.
This was clearly an emotional denial of the issue by staff, and they should have responded with a willingness to at least prepare a cost estimate of implementing the plan, but they did not respect the request from the School Board and took no action.
vj