This discussion took place at 11 a.m. Tuesday, April 25, 2006, and is now closed.

-----

Moderator: Welcome, Cindy. Let's get right to it. Every new house built in Orange County contributes $7,000 in impact fees for schools. Wake does not collect impact fees. Is this a viable option here?

CG: Wake could elect to collect impact fees for schools, but the Wake County commissioners would make that decision. Raleigh just increased the impact fee it collects for roads and parks.

Moderator: What have been some of the downsides of the path Orlando chose for dealing with growth?

CG: For one, I think there's been a concern among younger potential homebuyers that an extra $7,000 tacked to the cost of a home puts the prospect of home ownership out of reach. As the series also revealed, as much as Orlando has done, 1 in 5 students still learn in portables there. There are more than 4,000 portables on Orlando school sites. Also, schools there are still beyond capacity, because the district is in its third year of a 13-year school sales tax. In addition, the county still approves some developments in areas where the schools are overcrowded.

Moderator: Have the higher property and sales taxes and impact fees been a deterrent to growth in Orange County?

CG: Actually, the property tax rate dipped after voters approved the school sales tax. That means that more of the burden of paying for Orlando schools falls to tourists who purchase in Orange County. As for impact fees, builders remain very interested in putting up new houses in Orlando and people are still buying.

Moderator: Are developers simply passing on the added fees to the homebuyer?

CG: Well, essentially yes, though I'm not very familiar with how builders structure their prices. For the most part, builders in Orlando are beginning to see the wisdom in having a new school for people buying new homes. The homebuyers I spoke with seemed to like to send their children to new schools. Many times, the children in newer schools have higher incomes and many of those schools also post higher test scores. One thing that people in high-growth areas dislike, however, is that their kids are susceptible to reassignment, sometimes every other year.

Moderator: You mention in the story that Orange County foresaw its growth problems. Considering Wake is already in a pinch, is it too late to learn from Orlando's "pay-as-you-grow" model?

CG: No. Builders here are still building. The difference at this point across Florida is that the state is mandating this sort of "finances before building" model for all kinds of infrastructure, including roads, water and sewer systems and schools. As the story tried to express, Wake is where Orlando was when it got things together and started working on this problem. There was a school sales tax referendum that failed in Orlando (it was combined with another half-cent measure), before the one passed in 2002. So, perhaps the lesson is get a plan and if at first it doesn't succeed, try again. Another lesson is to have a committee that assures taxpayers that the plan they vote on for new schools will come to pass in an efficient, no-waste way. Also, Orlando essentially has neighborhood schools and a modest magnet plan. We have a larger magnet program with a diversity plan. That makes it tough to ensure neighborhood schools here. And with massive reassignments, even tougher.

Moderator: The average SAT score in Orlando (988) is significantly lower than in Wake (1075). Have the decisions Orange County has made regarding growth contributed to lower scores? Or are there other factors there?

Next page >