Letter: Fort Mill school board, superintendent oppose new impact fees

With the passage of Act 388 in 2008, our state legislature unintentionally created the largest tax burden ever on South Carolina business owners.

This legislation has shifted the majority of the burden for school operations onto the shoulders of commercial properties due to the fact that residential property owners pay nothing for the cost of school operations on their primary residence.

Furthermore, for most school districts, the only ability to generate annual, new revenues is by increasing the levy on local property taxes, which further burdens business owners while having zero impact on residential properties.

Most experts believe that a well-balanced tax base consists of 60 percent commercial properties and 40 percent residential properties.

In 2014, only 24 percent of the district’s assessed value was made up of commercial property, while 76 percent was rooftops. Due to the fact that the local governing bodies within our school district have approved more than 12,000 additional homes, this ratio will only continue to be skewed in a less than desirable direction.

The Fort Mill School District desperately needs commercial growth within our boundaries. This would not only generate more tax revenue to pay for school operations, but would also have another positive effect of slowing the influx of new students into our district.

The Superintendent and the School Board are opposed to any new impact fees for commercial properties within our school district, due to the fact that we believe they would have a negative impact on whether new businesses decide to locate within our district.

The burden placed on business owners in our school district is already a lot higher than other neighboring municipalities and fees proposed by the Town of Fort Mill would only further widen this gap.

We are additionally opposed to any impact fees associated with the building of new schools.

Due to the fact that the school district has not approved a single new rooftop in our district, we should not be burdened with an impact fee, since any new schools that are required are only necessary due to the new residential units the town has recently approved.

We encourage the local municipalities to explore other options, such as the cessation of building new multi-family units, moratoriums, or limiting the issuance of building permits.

Other municipalities, including our neighbors, have looked at and implemented these measures without imposing impact fees on the type of growth we need in our school district.

This story was originally published July 17, 2015 at 1:27 PM with the headline "Letter: Fort Mill school board, superintendent oppose new impact fees."