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Costs Stall School, County Building Talks

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By RONNIE BLAIR, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 3, 2007

LAND O' LAKES - The Pasco County School District and Pasco County government still aren't making headway in their effort to work out a new interlocal agreement that details guidelines for handling school construction.
Assistant Superintendent Ray Gadd told the school board Tuesday he had been optimistic after a meeting between district officials and the county attorney's office in which some compromises were reached.

Then Tuesday morning he received from the county a draft of the interlocal agreement.

'Nothing in it reflects anything we discussed,' Gadd said.

County officials told him that was because any of the discussed changes would have to be approved by the county commission. The commission's next meeting is Tuesday.
Gadd said the draft is 'completely unacceptable' to Superintendent Heather Fiorentino and him.

'I wouldn't present it to you,' he told the board.

He said the district may put together its own draft so there could be two drafts of the agreement when the school board and the county commission meet in a joint session Oct. 30.

The interlocal agreement is part of a school concurrency plan that must be approved by the state Department of Community Affairs by Feb. 1.

All counties in Florida must develop school concurrency plans, which link the approval of new development to whether there is adequate capacity in schools to handle the growth.

One of the major sticking points in the Pasco interlocal agreement has been who pays for off-site infrastructure, such as roads and sidewalks, when a school is built.

The school district maintains it is responsible only for roads and sidewalks on school property, and the county should pay for other improvements needed in the vicinity of the school.

The county disagrees.

The same issue led the Hillsborough County School Board to sue Hillsborough County government last month, asking a judge to rule that off-site improvements are the county's responsibility.

'Every district is having this issue,' board member Kathryn Starkey said. 'The whole state is awaiting this decision.'

Ultimately, taxpayers will foot the bill, regardless of where the money comes from, board attorney Dennis Alfonso said.

'But right now, we're fighting over whose budget it's going to come out of,' he said.
Gadd said the county wants the school district to address much of the planning for a school site before, not after, it purchases property.

'We are being put in a position where we, literally, would have to do our engineering upfront,' Gadd said.

One of the problems with that, he said, is the school district sometimes buys land years before it builds a school, and the plans can change.

Starkey said the district might need to change its approach in the interlocal negotiations with the county. She said when it comes to negotiating, she prefers the Donald Trump method of increasing the demands each time, rather than lowering them.

'We might need to toughen up,' she said.

Reporter Ronnie Blair can be reached at (813) 948-4218 or rblair@tampatrib.com.

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