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Pasco School District staff recommend updated capital facilities plan; draft would shift school impact-fee profile to multifamily units
Summary
Consultants and district staff presented a draft 2025 Capital Facilities Plan update that identifies a new middle-school growth project and, based on the statutory fee formula, would result in a $0 single-family fee and a reduced multifamily fee; staff will present a proposed adoption on March 11 for the board’s consideration.
District staff and outside counsel reviewed the draft 2025 Capital Facilities Plan and the school impact-fee calculation used by the City of Pasco and Franklin County to estimate how residential development will share the cost of growth-related school projects.
Denise Stifferme, an attorney with Pacifica Law Group working on the district’s plan, told the board the Growth Management Act requires school districts to plan for facilities to serve projected enrollment growth and that the plan’s five components include locally adopted educational standards, inventory and capacity, six-year enrollment projections, a financing plan and the impact-fee calculation. She said recent bond projects (elementary schools funded in 2017 and two new high schools funded by a 2023 bond) have addressed prior elementary and high-school capacity issues; the draft plan identifies middle school as the current growth-related need.
Stifferme described the student-generation methodology that ties fees to the estimated number of students produced by new dwelling units and explained credits that reduce fees, including expected bond property-tax contributions. That calculation produced an unusual result in the draft: a zero single-family fee (meaning the formula’s tax credit would fully offset the single-family cost share) and a reduced but still positive multifamily fee. Stifferme said the result follows the statute and local adoption choices and encouraged periodic updates because demographics and housing types shift over time.
Board members asked about optics — whether charging a multifamily fee while the single-family fee computes to zero might appear regressive — and about the sensitivity of revenue estimates to permit volume. Stifferme said comparable effects have occurred in other jurisdictions where many students live in multifamily housing, and district staff said the draft will be presented formally for adoption at the March 11 board meeting and then to the City of Pasco; the county has historically declined to adopt the district’s plan and ordinance and instead the district pursues mitigation agreements under the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA).
Why it matters: School impact fees are a one-time charge on new residential units that, by statute, must represent a proportionate share of the cost of growth-related school facilities. The draft plan shows Pasco’s growth-related need at the middle-school level and illustrates how local housing and tax-assessment data can materially change which housing types bear most of the calculated fee burden.
What’s next: Staff will bring a proposed Capital Facilities Plan and fee figures to the board for consideration March 11. The district will ask the City of Pasco to update its fee ordinance; staff will again request Franklin County consider adopting school impact fees though the county has historically declined and the district will continue using SEPA mitigation for many county projects.
