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News
Joliet unveils plan for school impact fee : News : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisJoliet unveils plan for school impact fee
| Will affect Oswego School District as city continues to grow
| by Tony Scott
| 1/22/2004
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In the near future when landowners in Joliet begin annexing into the Oswego School District, district officials now know how much of an impact fee they can charge developers.
At a press conference last Friday at Troy Middle School in Plainfield, a group of school and municipal officials from Kendall, Will and Grundy counties announced a newly proposed impact fee specifically designed to fund new school buildings. The Oswego School District has impact fee agreements with Oswego, Montgomery, Aurora, and Plainfield, but has yet to reach an agreement with Joliet.
The fee, called the School Facilities Impact Fee, is the result of a consortium of school and municipal officials, and the Will-Grundy Counties Home Builders and Associates organization. It will be implemented once affected municipalities and school districts adopt resolutions supporting the fee, and will be applied to all new annexations within those municipalities and school districts after they approve the resolution.
The Oswego School District, along with school and city officials from Joliet, Plainfield, Minooka and other areas in far eastern Kendall, northeastern Grundy and western Will counties are supporting the proposal. Oswego Village President Craig Weber said this week he hasn’t formally reviewed the proposal, but added he would support “anything the school district supports.”
Under the new proposal, the fee amount will increase every six months until the end of 2005. After that, it will see a four percent increase annually. Like traditional impact fees, this fee will be paid by the developer at the time a building permit is issued, and the cost will be passed on to the home buyer.
For example, a three-bedroom home in a unit school district such as Oswego would command a fee of $1,763, if it was built between now and the end of June. A home with four or more bedrooms would require a fee of $2,640 if it was built during the same period. However, those amounts will increase every six months until the end of 2005, when it will annually increase by four percent.
Officials show support, criticize state funding
John Mezera, the city manager of Joliet who led the press conference, applauded the measure, but cautioned that the state’s policies for funding schools need to be overhauled. School districts throughout the state rely almost entirely on real estate tax revenue.
“This doesn’t mean we won’t have to use real estate taxes, it just means there won’t be as much added to the real estate taxes if we all introduce this program into our communities,” Mezera explained.
Gregory Anderson, president of the Will-Grundy Counties Home Builders and Associates, acknowledged his organization’s support of the new impact fee. He encouraged residents to approve any referenda for new schools, but also made a push for a change in funding by the state.
“The next step is to gain the support of local residents, by referenda, and the State of Illinois,” he said. “The message from the development community that we represent is that of a challenge to the residents and the State of Illinois. We have come forward in full support, it is now time to make it happen.”
Joe Guinnane, president of the Oswego School District’s Board, encouraged state legislators to support the state’s construction grant program. He noted that the district has doubled its student population in the past five years, and predicted that in 15 years the district will see a student population of 30,000.
“We can’t build all the buildings we need to build, even though we’re getting citizens’ support through referendums,” he said.
Dr. David Behlow, Oswego schools superintendent, thanked the group of officials who initiated the proposal.
“They brought together a fairly interesting group of people with hard and strong views, and they realized that eventually the collective good of helping our children is worth putting aside some of those opinions and perspectives, and producing a great end result.”
Behlow also cautioned that an impact fee is not the solution to all problems involving school funding.
“It defrays the cost, it does not pay the entire cost,” he said. “And as we look at other opportunities to work hard at work worth doing, one of those I would submit to you is looking at how we fund schools in the state of Illinois.” |
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