Manatee County school board must assure public that impact fees will be spent wisely

Most teachers care about their students and try their best to help them all achieve. They try to treat them all fairly and equally. The Manatee County school board and county commissioners likewise want to do their best to make a better community for all.

If you live around or transit The Mall at University Town Center area, you know it is frequently the case that developers build malls and homes before anyone thinks about congestion from them and the roads and schools needed because of them.

Developers pay taxes and create jobs, but who really pays for new infrastructure and less than adequate belated interchanges to relieve congestion their building brings? You, the taxpaying citizen pays; you will be paying for an outlandish expensive $100 million high school, too, and should question that. Impact fees, paid for by those who create growth by building, should pay for much of that growth.

We at Manatee School for the Arts and several other tuition-free public charter schools that educate nearly 4,000 public school students support the re-implementation of impact fees to support public education in Manatee County.

However, in fairness and equity to all, we encourage the county commission to ask the School Board of Manatee County for assurances that any funds generated through the impact fees, and other fees and taxes paid by all, shall be used fairly and equitably for the benefit of all public school students, including those at charter schools.

To that end, the school board should plan to develop policies and procedures to make that happen before their impact fees are approved. This is just a simple matter of fairness and equity for everyone who lives here.

David R. Kraner, board chair, Manatee School for the Arts

Palmetto

This story was originally published January 5, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Manatee County school board must assure public that impact fees will be spent wisely ."