Impact-fee study would raise police, fire and parks fees; state law changes limit how fast increases can be imposed

At the budget workshop, Henry Thomas presented a municipal impact-fee study that recalculates charges for police, fire and parks to cover growth-related portions of large capital projects, including a proposed public-safety complex and training facility. The consultant said several calculated fees would be materially higher than current fees and that state statutory limits and recent amendments constrain how quickly the city can enact large increases. The consultant explained the basics of impact-fee law and case law requirements: fees must reflect a reasonable level-of-service standard, be tied to the capital projects listed in the fee study, and be spent on the same project categories used to justify the fee. Thomas said impact fees cannot be used to fix existing capital deficiencies or to pay operating expenses. Using the consultant’s assumptions, residential police fees as calculated would increase (presented as a move from roughly $7.47 to $12.62 per dwelling unit under the consultant’s full-calculation model). Fire and parks calculations also rose in the presentation; the parks calculation was adjusted during the workshop and presented as slightly lower than an earlier draft (single-family parks fee presented in the workshop as $13.58 and multifamily as $10.86 per unit in the revised numbers shown). The consultant cautioned that some of the calculated fees would exceed the statutory phasing limits or caps in current law and therefore could only be phased in over multiple years unless the council makes an extraordinary-circumstances finding. Consultants and staff explained the statutory mechanics. The Florida Impact Fee Act (Section 163.31) requires studies be based on recent local data, separate accounting of fee revenues and expenditures, and provides limits on how much a fee may increase at once and how frequently fees can be changed. The consultant said the 2024 and 2025 amendments to the act and a pending bill (discussed as Senate Bill 1080) make extraordinary-circumstance approvals harder: consultants said future changes could require a higher vote threshold to qualify for faster or larger increases. City staff and the city attorney (represented in the workshop discussion by Cliff and Attorney Shepherd) said they would review legal options and the extraordinary-circumstances path. The council asked staff to return with legal findings and alternative implementation paths; the agenda was set to add impact-fee action items to the first meeting in August for further council direction. No fees were adopted at the workshop.