San Marcos City Council Postpones Impact Fee Waiver For Hays County Jail

“Something that we often forget, those that live in the city pay county taxes too,” Hughson said. “So in effect, they’re kind of paying twice for this. So without a formal agreement of how we might swap this out, I can’t support this.”

During Tuesday’s, March 6, city council meeting, Council member Lisa Prewitt made a motion to postpone the vote on an impact fee waiver for the Hays County Jail projects.

The impact fees were implemented following the Hays County Bond election where voters approved a bond to improve the Hays County Jail and law enforcement facilities.

The fees are imposed on new developments by local governments to help cover costs for public services.

In August 2016, Hays County Commissioner’s court approved a $237.8 million bond to the November 2016 ballot. Included in the total was a budget of $106.4 million to expand the Hays County Jail and 911 communications building.

On Tuesday, the San Marcos City Council considered the approval of waiving impact fees for the Hays County Jail project, which amounted to $400,486.

The issue, Item 12, was originally on the council’s consent agenda. However, Council Member Scott Gregson motioned to move it from the consent agenda to open the item for discussion.

Council Member Scott Gregson said that Impact fees were used to pay cash for infrastructure projects related to water and wastewater. He said his concern was that City Council was being asked to waive a fee they’d never been asked to waive before except for maybe the Hays County Government Building as far as he was aware.

“This money is impacting our ratepayers; so if we don’t capture these dollars, than this goes to in effect increase the rates for our water and wastewater ratepayers,” Councilmember Gregson said. “My concern is that the ratepayers are being asked to bear to brunt of a $400,000 waiver of fees for a benefit that impact apparently the entire county, because it’s a county jail.”

Council Member Jane Hughson agreed that asking the city ratepayers to bear the burden to the waiver when it comes to a facility that benefits all of the county was not something she could.

According to Clint Garza, Hays County Chief of Staff, said Hays County Jail takes approximately 180 inmates a month from the San Marcos Police Department; there is no formal agreement between the city or the county for this service, and the county does not charge for it unlike others who charge cities an annual fee for use of the jail for city inmates.

Assistant City Manager, Steve Parker, said the rate impact for San Marcos ratepayers would be seven-tenths of one percent.

“We were trying to figure out, obviously, trying to keep the relationship with the county on a lot of different fronts that are coming up,” Parker said. “But I think the real goal was some of the benefits related to what this facility will do as far as joint operations. The law enforcement training center, their actual EOC that we’ll be able to access, a faster processing center for booking inmates and getting our officers back out on the street, that does have a positive impact on our citizens in that manner.”

Since Public Safety falls under the General Fund expenses of the city’s budget, Council member Gregson asked if money from the general fund could be used to pay ratepayers back for the rate increase.

However, staff stated the city did not budget for impact fees into the rate model as the city didn’t always know when they could count on them.

Parker said the county was looking at covering the $200,000 to put in lighting at the 5 Mile Dam Park soccer fields; they can’t be obligated yet as there is no formal agreement, but the county is looking through its park funds to fund it.

Council Member Jane Hughson said without a formal agreement on how the city could swap out the Impact Fee waiver for something, she couldn’t support it.

“Something that we often forget, those that live in the city pay county taxes too,” Hughson said. “So in effect, they’re kind of paying twice for this. So without a formal agreement of how we might swap this out, I can’t support this.”

Council Member Prewitt withdrew her motion to approve the item and made a motion to postpone the topic to give staff time to talk with the county more. The item is expected to return before city council at the March 20 meeting.