Wednesday, December 27, 2000
|
Wednesday, December 27, 2000 |
|
Cities not budging on impact fees for jail
By DAVE HAMRICK
Fayette County's mayors remain resolute in saying that they've written their final intergovernmental agreement on impact fees for a new county jail. Impact fees are charged to developers to help pay the costs of new government services and facilities made necessary by growth. County leaders are hoping to use the fees to reduce the 2.5 mills in property taxes currently devoted to building a new county jail. County commissioners Dec. 14 approved a new version of the agreement that would have preserved the possibility that the county might one day charge the cities per diem fees to keep municipal court prisoners in the jail. The cities approved a version earlier that, according to county officials, would preclude such fees. And while city officials disagree that their language would necessarily forbid the charging of fees, they also argue that there's no reason such fees should be charged, because city residents already pay property taxes to maintain the jail. The cities' latest version includes a new sentence that simply guarantees space for the cities' detainees. Language in the commission's latest version included a new sentence stating that "the county's ability to house inmates at the jail facility may be contingent upon the payment by the governing authorities of a per diem for municipal court detainees." Mayors gathered for lunch Friday to discuss that new language, and Mayor Bob Lenox of Peachtree City brought a proposal to add yet another sentence stating that "said per diem may only be charged if the county has first satisfactorily demonstrated to the governing authorities that: "1. Tax equity exists between the county and the governing authorities or authority, and "2. The governing authorities or authority have not already paid for the relevant jail space through ad valorem taxes, court surcharges or any other means." "I'm trying to figure out some way we could have some wording we could all live with," Lenox told The Citizen prior to the mayors' meeting. "I think the jail is that important." But city leaders maintain that their residents already pay more than half of the property taxes used to maintain the jail, and if impact fees are imposed, will pay more than half of the impact fees to build a new one. For instance, Lenox said, Peachtree City residents paid almost $1.5 million in property taxes to operate the jail in 2000, about 35.4 percent of the $4.2 million operating cost. And the city has about 35 percent of the county's population. And if impact fees had been charged for new development in 2000, Lenox said, growth in the cities would have provided 70 percent of the $1.6 million that would have been collected in impact fees to help pay for construction of a new jail.
|
||