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fee waiver for schools

jim baird

jim baird

Silver Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2009
Messages
490
Location
Comer, GA
Just a show of hands, please. Comments OK too.

County school system building addition to school within this muni's boundary.

Building permits are issued by muni, not county, inside city limits.

Architect sent me plans, which I reviewed.

Contractor came for permit.

My review of record found only one prior addition since permitting was begun here in mid 80's, and a fee was charged then, no clue as to how it was figured.

Ergo I used the current fee basis to calculate fee amount. School admin does not like it, as out in the county they never have charged the school system for a permit.

I advised assistant superintendent of my rationale, and suggested they appeal my decision to council.

Is it common practice among those here to waive permit fees for school buildings?
 
We have a longstanding MOU with the county to not cross-charge. Works good for them, they build within the city frequently, but the City has rarley built something that wasn't with the city limits. Lacking an agreement, let someone else make the final call.
 
We always charge for schools. when I started I ran into the same situation. I told them that since the requirements of my job didn't differ then the fee didn't differ.
 
I've never understood charging sales taxes or other fees for school (or any other government entity) construction. It just takes my money out of one government pocket and puts it in another. The end result is that it raises the cost of construction. But so does LEED and everyone feels the need to hop on that band wagon.

Time to put soap box away, go back to work!
 
Our current policy is to not waive fees on schools within our ETJ because the school system pulls its students from outside our City Limits/Tax base. I suppose if they were entirely within our City Limits then there might be a change in thought. Very few projects have had fees waived.
 
We had a large school project (state) in our juris. (county.) They asked for a reduction in fees. We told them no. Same as everyone else.
 
We charge for permits on additions, new, remodels if the work is performed by outside contractors.

So to answer your question... New school, outside contractors, permit fee. Water heater, electrical work, HVAC etc performed by school maintenance employees..permit required and inspections performed but no fees charged.
 
We charge permits for all projects including city projects, county, state or schools.

They are all seperate taxing authorities. By not charging for your services, (you do provide a service and thus incurr expenses), you are subsidizing there construction project with taxes paid by your residents or fees from permits you collected from others.

For our city projects all departments are suppose to operate as stand alone departments. If we wave fees to other departments then again we are subsidizing a portion of the true cost of the projects. If there are grant monies involved then the fees are part of the overal grant. Our last 3 projects where 100% grants the city had received for a total of 1.2 million dollars of which my department received over $14,000.00 in fees
 
We do exactly as mtlogcabin does. It doesn't matter who owns it, builds it or occupies it. That way it's fair and impartial for everyone.
 
Sorry,I had a little mental moment. We do charge for schools, but not for County owned buildings, school district is different. All fees except sales tax are charged.
 
Every jurisdiction I ever worked for always charged fees to everyone, except themselves.
 
Colorado started (by legislation) to allow approved local juridictions to do building and mechanical code inspections. The state inspectors were stretched to thin, and weren't getting the job done. Plumbing and electric are still being done by the state, so those inspections and work are not considered in the valuation for the permit.
 
We are not allowed to be involved in the construction of public schools in the Land of Lincoln, so no reviews, permits, fees or inspections.
 
Thanks for all the replies.

As I suspected there is a range of answers to the question.

Local school admin, in letter of appeal, cited no law, rule, or other language, except the popular vernacular, "we've always done it this way".

Mind, I am in an area that has only in the last twenty-five years or so emerged into the light of ideas such as buidling codes and comp planning. (Comp planning had to be imposed from the state level, and still rubs the fur wrong on many backs)

Our county had a policy of not charging for permits on fire rebuilds, but those savings were not really enjoyed by anyone but the insurer.

It has only been about forty years that we have had state licnesing of building trades.
 
As I recall, Georgia school districts are county wide as in Florida.

I believe that in Florida this places them above municipalities in terms of sovereignty and thus exempt from local permitting (but it has been a while since I worked on a relevant project and that sort of stuff was above my pay grade).

I would strongly suggest having the city attorney look at it.

B
 
We used to waive fees for schools and other taxing entities. Until I started keeping record of just how much money our department was loosing. We lost 11 people from are department due to budget cuts, and I decided to show the council why we had not met budget. They did not care. They were kicked out of office and the new council and attorney looked at my records and asked where the council got the authority to waive fees. We shrugged and they said to start charging fees, we should have never stopped charging fees. Each year we waived fees we lost between $50,000 and $60,000.
 
Our fees are established by local government authority (in my case by County Board ordinance). It takes County Board action to waive or modify any fee. Only twice in my 24 years has the board done this. I show the full permit fee on the permit and then note that it was waived by board action on such and such date.

Joe
 
The way that our company deals with this and other situations similar to this, is we will charge them full price and as soon as they pay it we write out a check as a donation back to them. this gives us the ability to write it off as a donation on our taxes. this seems to work out good for everyone in our area
 
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