All entries tagged with “Manatee County Commission”

Manatee Approves Plan to Phase School Impact Fees Back Into Effect

Posted by Jacob Ogles on Thursday Jan 7, 2016 11:21 am

Manatee County Commission voted to phase school impact fees back into effect for the first time since 2009, but members criticized a plan by the School Board to connect the rate to an upcoming referendum on a sales tax next year.

Manatee commissioners on Tuesday morning voted 5-2 in favor of restoring the fee, but charging it at a 50-percent rate and phasing it in over two years. At full strength, the fee for a new single-family home would be $6,475.

County Commissioner Betsy Benac, who supported the action, stressed it was the School Board that supported that level of fee, and that the county commission needed to support that board’s stance. “We have no super-authority on this,” she said. “We are not the ones charged with setting the school fee,” she said. “We are charged with collecting it and sending the money to the School Board.” 

But County Commissioner Charles Smith, a dissenting vote, disagreed mostly with a School Board plan to tie a reduction of fees to a renewal vote regarding a schools sales tax expected in 2017. The plan is to attach to that referendum a commitment to cut the school impact in half should the sales tax pass. “I really want to School Board to get as much money as possible,” he said. “But this is troubling to me.”

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