Betting on the Future

The Hernando County School Board approved a financing plan for school construction this week that is estimated to cost approximately $222 million dollars for a period of 30 years. The estimated repayment figures from the school district's chief financial officer are $2.9 to $9.8 million per year, with the projected money coming from impact fees and existing local property taxes. Pat Fagan was the lone dissenting vote to reject this plan because he was concerned with exceeding the $100 million mark. Please recall the comments warning about this type of new project funding made by our property appraiser, Alvin Mazourek last spring during budget talks. Mr. Mazourek cautioned that if the housing growth bubble popped, the monies may not be available through property tax revenue to fund projects based on projected earnings. He also remarked how the current market prices were over-inflated. It looks like this loan program approved by the Hernando County School Board may just fall into that category. What happens if the housing and construction starts substantially level off or slow down during this 30 years period. Will impact fee money reach the target level to repay this loan? For example, after 20 years of collecting impact fees in Pinellas County, they suspended their (impact) program because their county was essentially built out and now is in re-development mode. With the explosive growth in this county when will we reach the mark of build-out here? Two major steps have taken in the last year to ease construction money woes for the school system. Taxpayers approved a 1/2 cents sales tax last year in a referendum to build new schools for the district. And the Hernando County Commission took the initial step this week in becoming the lead agency in School Concurrency which will have development help pay for itself in the future. Now the School Board is considering a lawsuit against the Florida Department of Education in reference to the classroom size amendment to attack the source of their financial problems. Only time will tell if the School Board put the cart before the horse by approving this funding program before solving the problems at the state level with the classroom size amendment.