Approve School Concurrency Review Fees (Operations Division)

The Growth Management Department reviews all comprehensive plan amendments, rezonings, and preliminary plats/residential site plans as part of the school concurrency process.  Per ILA section 5.5.2 (c), “The School Board may elect to establish a school concurrency review fee to be paid by the applicant that will accompany the completed application sent by the County or delivered to the School Board prior to any school concurrency review commences.”  Due to the increasing volume of reviews, the amount of staff time allocated to complete these reviews, software and legal review costs, staff is requesting approval to move forward with the implementation of school concurrency review fees. 

In October 2019, Growth Management staff engaged Fiscal Choice Consulting, LLC to develop a School Review Fee Study. Fiscal Choice Consulting, LLC was recently hired by Hillsborough County Government to update their review fee schedules, which have since been approved.  The final study was completed in November 2019.  The methodology reviews all costs associated with development reviews for each application type in order to arrive at a recommended fee schedule.  Staff is recommending the attached rounded version (page 5) of the consultant’s findings.  

If the School Board supports staff’s recommendation, then staff will reach out to all of the stakeholders (local jurisdictions, consultants, and the Tampa Bay Builders Association) on the logistics of implementation, and bring back the implementation strategy and input to the School Board prior to implementation.