Pasco School District presentation: proposed 2025 capital facilities plan reduces single‑family impact fee to zero

Representatives of the Pasco School District told the Pasco City Council April 14 that their 2025 capital facilities plan narrows near‑term capacity projects to a middle‑school need, which reduced the district’s proposed school impact fees.

City staff introduced the item; Denise Stiffarn, legal counsel for Pasco School District, and Superintendent Michelle Whitney explained the district’s six‑year enrollment projections, the student generation rate methodology and the fee formula required under the Washington Growth Management Act. “Impact fees also must be spent within 10 years of collection,” Stiffarn said, describing statutory limits on the use and timing of fees.

The district said projects completed or near completion (recent high school construction and elementary projects) were removed from the fee formula, leaving the planned middle‑school capacity as the primary growth‑related project. Because the middle‑school student generation rate and associated per‑seat cost produce a lower construction cost per dwelling unit — and because tax‑credit offsets reduce the fee for single‑family units — the district’s calculation resulted in a $0 single‑family impact fee and a proposed multifamily fee of about $2,600 per dwelling unit under the 2025 plan.

District staff outlined how the formula works: student generation rates are derived from recent building permits and student address matches; construction cost per seat is applied; credits for state school construction assistance and anticipated homeowner bond tax payments are subtracted; and a statutory 25% discount is applied as required by local policy. The district said it expects roughly 200 new students per year over the next six years and that enrollment modeling uses outside demographers, birth‑rate data and cohort survival methods.

Council asked clarifying questions about timing and vesting (impact fees are assessed at building permit issuance, not at plat approval), the difference between fee ordinance collection and SEPA mitigation (SEPA mitigation is negotiated during environmental review and can be less predictable), SEPA exemption thresholds (20 units for single‑family, 4 units for multifamily), and whether the county has comparable fee authority. District staff said the district will continue requesting that Franklin County adopt a comparable ordinance but will use SEPA mitigation in the meantime where applicable.

The presentation was a review; no ordinance change was adopted at the meeting. The district will continue its biennial review cycle and is expected to return with any ordinance or plan reference for council action in subsequent meetings; staff indicated the next routine update would be late 2026.