The Subtle Art of...the Pivot

When Impact Fee Deception Gets Caught

Impacts fees are collected with the intent to have growth pay for itself. The taxpayers of Manatee County have been vocally calling for our fees to be increased since 2015 when past Boards refrained from charging the full amount, even on outdated costs.

Last April, I finally got the current Board to agree to move forward with the April 2023 study so we could get these fees caught up to costs and avoid having you, the current residents, picking up the tab. That agreement was short-lived as the vote was continuously pushed back until I put it on the agenda last November.

Last November, a motion was made by another commissioner to consider raising our Manatee County impact fees from the current 90% of the 2015 study to 100% of the outdated costs. At the time of this motion, the supermajority of the Board made sure to push out as much fanfare and propaganda as possible, both internally and externally through fake “conservative” news sources, websites and newsletters.

The intent of that motion, as detailed in my November Substack (reposted below), was to deceive the taxpayers and voters in Manatee County into thinking impacts fees would be “fully-funded”, when in reality they would only be caught up to 2015 levels.

This deceptive motion was called out when it was clear that the actual intent was to campaign on increasing fees and “holding developers accountable” while locking future boards into excessively low fees at the expense of you, the taxpayers, since Florida Statute would most likely prohibit another increase for four years.

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Last Thursday, an update on our impact fees was placed on the Land Use agenda. It was at this time that the Pivot was put in place. Knowing that that actual intent of last November’s motion was now public knowledge, the supermajority had to offer something up. Before a word was uttered by staff, a commissioner was on the board to speak to ensure a motion could be made immediately.

The motion was made and approved to adopt the April 2023 study and increase impact fees by 50% over four annual increases of 12.5%.

This motion is certainly beneficial to existing residents as it will result in $80-100MM of additional impact fees collected over these four years. However, it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the actual cost of growth over those four years.

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How did we get here and why was that the motion?

The Florida State Legislature LOVES telling local municipalities what do to. In 2021, they passed HB337, which modified and restricted what local governments could charge for impact fees. Essentially, we can only increase them once every four years and the maximum we can increase at any one time is the 50% over four years (hence the motion). All of this can be found in Florida Statute 163.31801.

The Legislature did, however, consider the fact that some counties may have Boards that actually take the best interests of ALL their residents into consideration. Therefore, they inserted a work-around to increase beyond the above maximum.

A local government, school district, or special district may increase an impact fee rate beyond the phase-in limitations established under paragraph (b), paragraph (c), paragraph (d), or paragraph (e) by establishing the need for such increase in full compliance with the requirements of subsection (4), provided the following criteria are met:

1. A demonstrated-need study justifying any increase in excess of those authorized in paragraph (b), paragraph (c), paragraph (d), or paragraph (e) has been completed within the 12 months before the adoption of the impact fee increase and expressly demonstrates the extraordinary circumstances necessitating the need to exceed the phase-in limitations.

2. The local government jurisdiction has held not less than two publicly noticed workshops dedicated to the extraordinary circumstances necessitating the need to exceed the phase-in limitations set forth in paragraph (b), paragraph (c), paragraph (d), or paragraph (e).

3. The impact fee increase ordinance is approved by at least a two-thirds vote of the governing body.

I’ve been asked, and comments have been made, about why I didn’t push for an immediate increase beyond the 50%, knowing that the motioned increase would take four years just to get Manatee County up to 60 cents on the dollar of the actual cost of growth (compared to the current 40 cents).

My job is not to “prove” anything with losing 6-1 votes. It’s not to fight losing battles and give up ground won. My job for the citizens and taxpayers of Manatee County is to get the best I can for all of you in every situation. I’m trying to continuously maximize your quality of life while I work to minimize your cost of living.

Unlike at least one other commissioner, I do not believe my position entitles me to a dictatorial-level of control. I cannot hire and fire staff at will. I cannot award no-bid contracts. I cannot control our PR. And I cannot raise our impact fees unilaterally. I need other votes from the dais.

Before last Thursday, the supermajority was attempting to increase impact fees by a pathetic 10% one-time increase. The motion that passed last week, after we called them out, increases them by 12.5% each year for four years, to a total of 50%. Based on last year’s collections, that’s over $50MM in additional fees, over the four years, beyond what we would have received through the initial motion.

The reality is that a motion was already on the floor. I could have fought that motion, which I was almost guaranteed to lose, but I couldn’t make another motion until that one was resolved. The decision was already made before it even hit the agenda.

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However, what if I would have fought it and convinced the board to go along with at least contemplating a more substantial increase? What would that have looked like?

A nominal increase can be done with a “calculation based on the most recent and localized data” since we’d never actual approach the full amount. However, it was suggested that an attempt at 100% of the fees would need a study less than 12 months old to avoid legal fights. The current study is dated April 7, 2023. As per the above stipulations, we would NEVER get a demonstrated-needs study completed, two public workshops conducted and pass it through the Planning Commission and the BOCC in the next six weeks. This would have been feasible when the original motion was made back in April 2023, but it doesn’t work in the compressed timeline resulting from the endless delays.

Therefore, we would need to conduct a new, updated study, which would cost upwards of $500,000 and take approximately six months. We’d then need two to four months to prepare the needs study for the State, hold the workshops and get the votes. All-in, we’d be looking at 8-10 months to get it done beyond the state maximum. During that time, we would be collecting the old, 90% of 2015, fees.

Last fiscal year, we collected $62.2MM in impact fees, or an average of $650,000 per month. Even if we don’t assume an increase in fee collections (and the average annual increase has been 23.3% over recent years although it’s been a more modest 7%+ over the first four months of this fiscal year), we’d be looking at forgoing $6MM to $7MM in additional impact fees and study costs while we waited out the process.

That would be a guaranteed loss for the taxpayers as the 12.5% increase would not go into effect. Would it be worth it if we got the full increase? DEFINITELY! The increase in collections with fully-funded impact fees would be transformational to Manatee County.

However, do you believe a supermajority (five votes) of THIS Board would ever vote for this full increase? This is a Board that tried to lock us into a fake fee increase and tie the hands of future boards. This is a Board that just gutted wetlands in spite of all the facts. If this Board would actually entertain a real, meaningful, necessary fee increase, we wouldn’t have delayed this for almost a year now. I have no faith in that vote being successful.

In fact, even if the study pushed all the way past the next election and all the incumbents lost, the revised board would still be short of the supermajority of votes required by the State.

What then? The taxpayers would be out the $6-7 million dollars in lost collections, the 50% cap would still be the most we could get and, as that’s based on a percentage of current fees, even further inflationary increases in costs over this coming year wouldn’t affect the revised fee schedule.

And, we would have substantially delayed implementation of the next increase which would push the start of the four year “no further increase” window out by almost a year.

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This was a pivot by the Board during an election year. Is it perfect? Not remotely. Does it cover growth? Not even close. Is it better than it was? Yes.

There was no way to get the rest of the Board to agree to the extra steps of authorizing the study and holding the additional meetings to increase beyond 50%. That was obvious. All we risked was fake interest to delay beyond the elections at your expense.

Our best hope is to take the $80-100MM of additional fees over these next four years and get the clock started immediately. If all goes right these next two election cycles, a new study can be ordered in 2027 to prepare for a 2028 discussion on finally getting our impact fees to fully-align with our impact of growth for the first time in recent memory.

Until then, take this concession as a small, albeit imperfect, win and focus on getting commissioners that prioritize 100% of your needs…not just 50%.