MISSING IMPACT FEE $$ | City of Hutto

mikesnyder
Council

Posts: 40

MISSING IMPACT FEE $$ Feb 15, 2023 16:24:57 GMT

Post by mikesnyder on Feb 15, 2023 16:24:57 GMT

Is anyone concerned that we have millions in missing roadway impact fee money? $3.5 million "outstanding" so far, and staff has not done the final calculation. I know that a couple members of council regularly say on the dias that we should not "get into the weeds" on things and that we should just "trust" that things are good. I even heard that if we find out that something is wrong, then we will take care of it.

So, here is my question for the City Council. We passed Traffic Impact Fees 2 yrs ago. This is money meant to go towards building our infrastructure. During the budget talks, we had a motion to accept the budget as presented. I obviously have a lot of questions on the continuous lack of detail. One major issue I had was that we should have millions in impact fees collected AND budgeted. I don't mind catching slack for pressing the issue. I even asked for an agenda item. Here we are 6 months later and we now know that it looks like we have not been collecting fees.

The question is "What are we going to do about it?".

BTW, this is not a James Earp issue as he wasn't the City Manager. BUT, I do believe this to be a CITY COUNCIL issue. We keep making decisions with out all of the facts. A group of councilmembers were pushing to sell $48 million in bond debt when we didn't even have proper accounting of the road money that we already SHOULD have had. I continue to hear how "we have to just go, and that we don't have time". Well, this rushing and "not getting into the weeds" is costing the taxpayer MILLIONS, in my mind.

We didn't want "get into the weeds" on the engineering service contracts that Warren brought us and we ended up spending $1.25M before we EVEN GOT A BILL. Now, we are 5 months into the fiscal year and we still DO NOT have a bill from the same engineering firm.

As a council, we spend 30 minutes on how we don't agree with another member of the council, but only spend 5 minutes on the million dollar items.

We can do better and I can't wait to hear how the City Council goes about fixing the millions in impact fees that were not collected, while we pushed for raising taxes to sell bonds to fix roads.

I keep saying "we" because, we ALL need to own up to this continued issue of not keeping an eye on the taxpayer dollar.

Dan Thornton Place 2
Council

Posts: 9

MISSING IMPACT FEE $$ Feb 15, 2023 17:21:43 GMT

Post by Dan Thornton Place 2 on Feb 15, 2023 17:21:43 GMT

This also feeds into making sure development pays for development.

Better tracking is needed. This reminds me that I had asked for tracking of "community benefit" fees so that we would know what we had taken in and where it came from. The same should go for the impact fees. We talk about being able to use community benefit fees or traffic impact fees from a given development to improve area intersections that are impacted by that development.

Obviously, not collecting the fee at all is a huge problem and we need that resolved and past due fees paid asap. But, failing to track and use those fees appropriately is also an issue. For example, the money coming in from developments along CR119 north of Limmer Loop should be funding the improvements we know we need at CR119/Ed Schmidt/Limmer. One of those developments had the traffic impact fees waived by prior leadership, but we negotiated a community benefit fee in the development agreement to help with the impact instead. If that money just goes into general fund usage, it is easy to find other things to spend it on instead of the infrastructure needs that are caused by the developments that generated the fees. Then we are left scrambling to fund those projects and it looks easier to some to borrow borrow borrow.

petergordonplace4
Council

Posts: 17

MISSING IMPACT FEE $$ Feb 15, 2023 22:21:00 GMT

Post by petergordonplace4 on Feb 15, 2023 22:21:00 GMT

The way I read James' e-mail and his response to me when I asked for clarification, we are due $3.5M in traffic impact fees, but $1.8M of that isn't due yet because they haven't reached the platting phase. So, $1.7M is past due, and in his e-mail he stated that they are already working to get those accounts due. I chalk it up to being severely understaffed in the Engineering and Finance Departments and see it as a very positive sign that we did the audit, identified the past-due accounts, and have already taken steps to get them current. Now that we've hired a City Engineer and are staffing up that department, I'm confident we'll see continued progress. Same with the Finance department.

James also stated in his e-mail on Friday that he would get us more details and a memo so we would clearly understand exactly what the situation is. I will be expecting a part of that to be a plan on how we will ensure these get reviewed in a timely manner going forward.

mikesnyder
Council

Posts: 40

MISSING IMPACT FEE $$ Feb 16, 2023 17:40:56 GMT

Post by mikesnyder on Feb 16, 2023 17:40:56 GMT

Agree with CM Thornton that we need to be tracking Community Benefit Fees. The email said outstanding. So, I take that as $1.7 million due and $1.8 million due. What concerns me is that we have an email, from an employee, telling a developer that "they don't have to pay" for the traffic fee. Meanwhile, we are trying to approve a budget where the CFO is arguing about numbers in it.

Only for us to find out later that $3.5 million is the number. BUT, as I explained to James yesterday. Staff may say these numbers today, but WHY would I believe these numbers? I mean seriously, over the past 3yrs, what continues to happen when it comes to money. We KEEP having the same issues. This next budget needs to have serious detail in it, like line by line detail so that we can see some of this stuff. I'm not concerned about policies, as if an employee really stated that a developer didn't have to pay impact fees, then they just broke state law. And, quite frankly, this City Council hasn't been one to hold people accountable. We ran out of money and went below the reserves 2yrs ago, and who was held responsible for that?

This is why I think that the fees are still off. In 2021, we had 2080 homes that received COs. In 2022 it was just over 800. Can anyone honestly say that they are 100% sure that the proper fees were assessed on the lots per when the fee schedule was passed and when the lots were platted? 2080 homes x $9,000 in water/wastewater fees comes out to just under $19.0M. Those were fees assessed years ago, and the fees before that were higher than that (if I remember correctly). So, going back almost 15yrs ago, based on a fees schedule from back then, we should have collected $19.0M in 2021 and last year another $7.2M (if I keep using the old impact fee rates). The road fees were instituted in the Spring of 2021, so ANY lots platted and homes built AFTER that, would have been assessed a traffic impact fee of $10,000 per house. The CFO had $1,000,000 in the budget for that, which would only be 100 homes. So, I know that that isn't right.

What I'm hoping for out of all of this, is that AS A COUNCIL, we stop fighting on "who's in the weeds" and we stand by some expectations with staff on level of detail and accountability. We had a motion at budget time to accept the budget as presented after a 5 min presentation. Meanwhile, we have issues like this that we AS A COUNCIL, didn't want to get into.

The people of Hutto are putting us up on the Dias to "be in the weeds". Trust should be a bad word. Verify, should be the word that we are looking for. We should be holding each other accountable, IN PUBLIC, to make sure that things are IN WRITING, and show to us. I mean, I am literally sick to my stomach that we are out here wanting to sell bonds for projects because we need road money, meanwhile, we have people telling developers to NOT PAY the fees that we AS A COUNCIL instituted. To say I'm a little upset is understating my feelings right now.

I'm still not real happy that we spend $1.25 million in engineering fees without even knowing it, AND, the budget was to include the same system again.

I know that my "approach" rubs some the wrong way, but if we as a city, stop blowing money and wastefully running things, then my approach would surely change.