By Morita Bruce
Ready to see your taxes raised or your county services slashed again? What’s fair about that?
Background: In October, there was a great deal of controversy about canceling the school impact fee. This is the fee paid by people who purchase new homes, and it pays for a portion (roughly one-fifth) of the cost of building new schools to serve the new students arriving from the newly-built homes. That bill failed. Now Bill 09-37 proposes to cut the fee rather than eliminate it, which still hurts current Harford residents by raising our taxes and/or cutting existing services.
Here’s my view:
Bill 09-37 will slash the school impact fee by 27%. I oppose this unfair bill. It subsidizes new-home buyers by unfairly increasing taxes on current residents or by cutting services (such as recreational facilities, libraries, etc.)
This bill unfairly hurts current residents in the vain ...Continue Reading
Tags: bill, council, development, impact fee, tax
Is Harford County’s impact fee a vital source of revenue for public school construction, or an unfair tax that has stymied new home sales?
Harford County Councilman Dion Guthrie (Dist. A) says it’s the latter. Along with co-sponsor Chad Shrodes (Dist. D), Guthrie introduced legislation on September 15th to repeal the county’s impact fee.
Guthrie, who voted against imposing the fee in 2005, said in a phone interview that the impact fee was not generating the revenue that was originally anticipated and it was not stimulating the economy. Guthrie said “It’s time to get rid of it.” He said the revenue lost by repealing the impact fee could be “easily overcome” by the revenues generated from increased economic activity resulting from more homes being built.
The impact fee is a set amount charged to developers to help offset the impact of new homes on the cost of public schools. ...Continue Reading
Tags: construction, council, development, glassman, Guthrie, impact fee, jacobs, Shrodes, slutzky, tax
Harford County Councilman Dion Guthrie (District A) plans to introduce a bill to eliminate the impact fee on new home sales at the council meeting October 7, 2008. Guthrie said he has support at this time from Councilman Chad Shrodes (District D) and Councilwoman Mary Ann Lisanti (District F).
Guthrie told The Dagger he had not supported the impact fee when it was first enacted by the Council in 2005, saying it was “an unfair tax because it only taxes new homes and not used homes.” Guthrie noted that families moving into existing homes also impact schools and other infrastructure, which the impact fee was designed to offset.
Tags: Chad Shrodes, cindy, county council, development, dion guthrie, impact fee, Mary Ann Lisanti, tax
