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Referendum planned to pay for Pasco's future parks, though the question is uncertain

 
Published March 19, 2015

DADE CITY — Pasco County plans to ask voters how to pay for parks and recreation in a November 2016 referendum, but commissioners want their own answers before deciding exactly what question the electorate will consider.

Among the unanswered inquiries:

• Should the county form a new taxing district for parks and recreation?

• Should that district be countywide or separated by region?

• Should Pasco's six cities participate?

• What role will impact fees play in building future parks?

The responses will determine how aggressively Pasco County is able to expand its parks network to meet current and future demands outlined in a new 10-year master plan.

Most of the existing park system is the result of a 1986 voter-approved bond issue and 10-year property tax. The county used impact fees to expand or build other parks. But the facilities have deteriorated amid a half-dozen years of constrained county budgets.

Now, the county plans to budget $500,000 a year just to tackle deferred maintenance to playgrounds, concession stands and other amenities that are otherwise in danger of being closed for safety reasons. It also wants to play catch-up and complete park facilities detailed in its 2001 master plan that have yet to be built and to ensure adequate access to facilities across the county.

These so-called baseline needs total more than $39 million for 41 projects, including splash parks at recreation centers in Land O'Lakes and Holiday, tennis courts at the Sam Pasco athletic complex near Zephyrhills, a recreation center at Burks Park in Dade City and completing the athletic fields at Wesley Chapel District Park.

To meet 2025 population projections, the county needs $97 million to expand Arthur F. Engle Park in Hudson, build new parks at Bexley Ranch, Connerton, Pasedena Hills and Meadow Pointe, and add kayak and canoe launches at four sites over the next decade, according to the report from AECOM.

The big question is how to pay for it all, and last week commissioners failed to reach a consensus.

Higher impact fees — the one-time charge on new construction to help pay for the infrastructure required to accommodate growth — didn't generate much interest. Commissioners Ted Schrader and Kathryn Starkey panned the idea, particularly, Starkey noted, after Stew Gibbons, the incoming president of the Tampa Bay Builders Association, publicly expressed concern about the cost of Pasco's impact fees.

The county's park impact fee of $891 per single-family house has not increased since its adoption 13 years ago. Then, the median price of a newly constructed house in Pasco was $117,000, according to City-Data.com. By 2012, the median price of a new house in Pasco had grown to nearly $199,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

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A majority of commissioners also have stated a preference for a status quo general fund property tax, so much so that they spent a significant amount of time last week debating the merits of continuing youth athletic fees that generate just $90,000 annually. The fees remain, at least until Oct. 1, commissioners finally decided.

That leaves a new property tax, known as a municipal service taxing unit, or MSTU, as the most likely alternative. Such tax districts already exist to finance the county fire department and mosquito control, but commissioners rejected a separate law enforcement taxing district five years ago.

Commissioners Jack Mariano and Mike Wells Jr. advocated for a countywide park tax district to include the six cities. Mariano also noted less affluent areas of the county could be shortchanged if the taxing district was not uniform.

"We're all in this together,'' Mariano said.

Schrader and Starkey favored a regional approach, but disagreed on how to devise the districts. Schrader wanted to follow the five market areas that separate the county into urban, suburban and rural categories. Starkey suggested using the existing impact fee zones that divide the county into three areas regardless of population: west, central and east.

Schrader pointed to the attributes of the Brevard County system, where voters in separate parks and recreation districts determined whether to tax themselves to build new facilities, in addition to a district tax to operate and maintain the parks after construction.

That county, with a population just slightly larger than Pasco's, has a $35 million parks budget and 353 staffers to operate 120 parks and 15 community centers. Pasco County has an $8.9 million parks operating budget with 115 full-time staff and 50 seasonal workers at 34 parks.

It didn't use to be that way. After the Great Recession of 2008, Pasco, cut $1 million and 48 positions from for its annual parks budget; closed three community centers, two parks and two swimming pools; reduced operating hours at the recreation centers, and started charging parking and athletic participation fees.

That would have to be reversed if the county moves forward with a new round of park construction. If it meets its 2025 goals for new parks, the report said, the county would need to double its annual operating budget for parks and recreation.