Lack of Impact Fees impacting Midway Fire budget
BY PAM BRANNON Gulf Breeze News news@gulfbreezenews.com

The lack of new construction in the Midway area of Gulf Breeze is affecting the budget of Midway Fire Department.

For all new construction, commercial or residential, public organizations like Midway Fire Department receive "impact fees." Midway Fire Commission Treasurer Clyde Broome presented the fire commission with a graph this week showing the statistics he has been warning them about over the last few months.

"This shows my concern about how the lack of impact fees is going to impact our budget," Broome said.

The graph showed that in the 2005 fiscal year, ending in September 2005, single family units built in Midway totaled 341, and in the 2006 fiscal year they totaled 314. In the first six months of this fiscal year for Midway Fire, ending March 31, so far there have only been 40 single family units built.

Broome said, "Of course, last year the largest month of impact fees was in August, when we collected for 128 new builds. But in October 2005 we had 57 new builds, and in October 2004 we had 32, and this past October we only had one. And then the next month we only had eight. In December 2004 we had 23 new builds, and in December 2005 we had 34, and last December we had three. And that is pretty much the trend for single family new construction this year."

The commercial building stats are worse. Commercial impact fees are determined by square footage. The graph shows that in Fiscal year ending September 2005 Midway Fire had collected impact fees for a total of 35,826 square feet of new building. Then in the 2006 fiscal year ending last September, they had collected impact fees on a total of 123,520 square feet in new building. So far this year, six months into their current fiscal year, they have only 3,172 square feet in new building. "New building is significantly down in our area," Broome pointed out.

In fact, his figures show they have not had any commercial new construction to collect for this year since last November - his graph shows zeros every month since then. In March 2006 there were 52,467 sq. feet in new commercial building to collect for, and this year in March there was zero.

Then he showed the commission budget figures for last month showing the year-todate collection of impact fees for the first six months of this fiscal year is only $10,932.90. But the budgeted impact fee collection that they had planned on using in the annual budget - to help cover the entire year's budgeted expenses - was $46,740.

Broome said, "You can see, if this trend continues, and we don't have some big subdivision go in or at least somebody complete some homes quick, then we are less than half of where we planned be at this point in impact fees for the year. That will put us significantly behind in that part of our budget for revenues at the end of the fiscal year."