On the agenda for Carroll County Commissioner on July 13, 2023: Setting of the School Impact Fees
Background: Since 2013, the Board of County Commissioners has held the School Impact Fee at zero. In the past, The Commissioners approved the continuation of holding the School Impact Fee at zero through June 30, 2023. The Board needs to decide what action they want to pursue going forward. The school impact fee can be revisited at any time based on the needs of the community.
Given all of the talk this past budget cycle about raising taxes on citizens in Carroll County…this is an important discussion happening next week.
“I believe” this might be the most telling discussion about “Developer” influence on local elected officials we have had in a while.
View the full agenda for July 13th here: https://www.carrollcountymd.gov/media/4brbhgvu/agenda.pdf
For some additional context…here are school impact fees in Howard County (per the Baltimore Sun):
The Howard County Council recently passed legislation raising the school surcharge fee charged to developers building new residential housing. From the current fee of $1.32 per square foot, the County Council unanimously approved Monday to increase the fee to $4.75 for 2020, $6.50 in 2021 and then $7.50. – Nov 8, 2019
Here is information via Howard County Government website on their public school facility surcharge rates: https://www.howardcountymd.gov/sites/default/files/2021-10/Public%20School%20Facility%20Surcharge%20Rates%20in%20accordance%20with%20CB42December%202019%20%28gk%29.pdf
Back in 2022 with the previous board: Carroll Board of County Commissioners votes to keep school impact fees at zero (Read Here via Baltimore Sun)
In that article:
The money is intended to pay for the construction of new schools to accommodate the additional students who are brought into the school system as new housing is built.
Impact fee money cannot be used to improve schools that are not affected by enrollment growth.
“Impact fees are a very restrictive revenue,” Zaleski said. “There’s a thin line on what you can do. … All that said, I don’t believe our situation is fundamentally changed.
While this looks unlikely to help with funding issues directly related to Blueprint (based on the explanation above) the question of revenue generation is likely to be an important one for Carroll County over the next year making this a discussion to watch.
