Vallecitos approves developer fee report

School districts collect developer fees to pay for the cost of facilities required to serve the new developments and, on Nov. 10, the Vallecitos School District board approved the district's 2019-20 annual and five-year developer fee reports.

The board voted 5-0 to approve the fiscal year and five-year reports. The only current expenditure project is the kitchen modernization at Vallecitos Elementary School.

The California Education Code allows a school district to collect developer fees if a supporting document justifies those fees. The California Government Code requires annual and five-year developer fee reports to be approved at a regularly-scheduled board meeting within 180 days of the end of the fiscal year.

The Fallbrook Union High School District collects developer fees on behalf of the Vallecitos School District, which allows the developers to make a single payment for schools, but the Vallecitos fees are in the school district's own account.

Developers of residential property pay $2.53 per square foot to the elementary school district and $1.16 per square foot to the high school district. The fee per square foot for commercial development is $0.41 for Vallecitos and $0.16 for the Fallbrook Union High School district.

Developer fees include room additions and other home expansions and not just new homes, so even with a limited number of additional dwelling units Vallecitos will still collect developer fees.

Repairs are not an eligible expenditure for developer fees. "We are able to modernize the facilities," said Vallecitos School District business manager Linda Miller. "The kitchen project is a modernization project."

Vallecitos School District began the 2019-20 fiscal year with a balance of $21,774.76 and collected $10,234.45 in developer fees which had interest earnings of $1,817.13. Ten percent of the kitchen modernization is eligible to be funded with developer fee revenue, and the school district spent $25,000 of that funding during 2019-20, leaving a year-end balance of $8,826.84.

At one time the Vallecitos School District had a food service agreement with the Fallbrook Union High School District. "They terminated that agreement," Miller said.

The end of that agreement with the high school district necessitated the Vallecitos Elementary School kitchen upgrades.

The five-year report anticipates spending $10,000 on the kitchen modernization during fiscal year 2020-21.