Officials propose rewritten interlocal agreement on school planning to streamline concurrency, add impact‑fee rules

County, city and school district staff presented an updated draft of the interlocal agreement (ILA) that governs school planning, concurrency and impact fees.

Chris Wilson of CJ Wilson Law and Jim Lipsey (school planning lead) outlined three broad changes: bring the ILA into alignment with current Florida statutes, streamline school site selection and concurrency processes, and add an explicit interlocal arrangement for administration, collection and remittance of school impact fees.

What the draft would change

- Planning and oversight: The draft replaces a quarterly interlocal committee with a staff working group that would meet at least twice a year (spring and fall) and prepare an annual report. The draft also proposes a smaller oversight committee made up of appointed elected officials from each body (suggested composition was discussed in the meeting). That oversight committee would hold an annual public meeting subject to the Sunshine Law. - Concurrency and school site selection: The proposed language is revised to match current statutes: notice to local governments ahead of site purchases and normal land‑use and permitting steps prior to construction. The school district would continue to rely on the Florida Inventory of School Houses (FISH) for capacity and would include long‑term relocatables in level‑of‑service calculations. - Proportionate‑share mitigation and credits: The draft incorporates a dollar‑for‑dollar market‑value credit mechanism for proportionate‑share mitigation paid to the school district (voucher approach), and it raises a small‑scale exemption threshold to 10 units (de minimis), replacing a prior "one‑student" threshold that staff said had been cumbersome. - Impact fees: For the first time the draft contains an explicit interlocal framework for the administration, collection, audit and remittance of school impact fees, with language allowing local governments to retain administrative costs and requiring a monthly report to the district for auditing.

Debate and concerns

Elected officials offered practical feedback. Some county commissioners preferred larger elected representation on the oversight committee (three county commissioners vs two); others argued for keeping the broader multi‑board meeting in addition to the smaller oversight body so planning conversations remain public and inclusive. County staff and the city supported the concept of a staff working group plus an annual public oversight meeting.

Commissioners also questioned whether mitigation and developer payments should route through the county or directly to the school board; staff said both approaches are permitted by statute and the parties had negotiated direct payment to the school district in many draft agreements to simplify accounting.

Next steps

Staff reported ongoing bi‑weekly meetings among county, city and school district planners and counsel to finalize language. The draft will return to each governing body for formal consideration once legal and staff-level edits are complete.

Quotations

"We're revising the concurrency process to conform to current Florida statutes," Chris Wilson said. "We're condensing and removing verbiage that restates statutes or codes that change over time."

"We want to make these processes more efficient between all of our local governments," Lipsey said, noting the draft proposes a working group to produce an annual report that will come before the elected oversight committee.

Ending

The proposed ILA aims to shorten review timelines and create clearer audit trails for impact fees and proportionate‑share mitigation; final review and votes are pending after additional staff coordination.