Talk of The Villages Florida - Road Paving (curious)

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrf0151 (Post 2283233)

There are so many roads here in TV that need to be resurfaced. Roads around our neighborhood are 20+ years old. The roads are very rough with highly exposed aggregate and piles of aggregate at the intersections. We have called Sumter County over the years and all they say is "there is nothing scheduled". Most likely all the road money is being used in the new south area of TV.

There is a pavement management plan for Sumter County (you can request a copy from the county - it's a very boring read, I know this first hand) that grades roads by condition, type of deterioration, and usage (traffic volume), it also considers other factors such as if it is access for a school and if the county has right-of-way rights. These and several other factors are analyzed to assign a priority to each roadway segment. Roads with the highest priority are addressed first and subsequently higher priorities are addressed until funds are exhausted for the fiscal year. This year there is about $3.5 million for road repair and maintenance in the county budget. None of these funds are used for new roads, it is all for maintenance. Use this link to look at the budget and expenditures.

Agenda - 09/26/2023

You comment about the new roads in the southern part of The Villages demonstrates your lack of knowledge on the topic. The new roads in the residential areas of TV are built by the developer and transferred to the City of Wildwood upon completion at no cost. The roads are funded by the development bond attached to each new home.

The major roadways in the southern part of The Villages are covered under a county road agreement between the county and the developer. The developer builds the new arterials and upon acceptance they are transferred to Sumter County. Sumter County is invoiced for the cost of materials and construction of the new roadway. Land, right-of-way acquisition, design and engineering cost are not bulled to the county and are absorbed by the developer. The county agreement defers payment of the invoices for 5 or 15 years depending on the segment involved, the county pays no interest or fees on these deferred payments. The funds for these roads are being paid for by Impact Fee assessments, the deferred payments allows the county to collect the impact fee payments before the invoice payment is due. These roads are self funding. All of this is in public documents and in the annual budget.

Impact fees CANNOT be used for maintenance, they are designed by state law as for growth and expansion. Impact fees are also designated for usage, in Sumter County they are designated for roads only. Other counties designate the impact fees for other purposes - schools, parks, infrastructure, fire stations, etc. and because of these additional designations charge much higher impact fees. Sumter County's needs are very much different from other counties.

A portion of the fuel taxes (2 cent per gallon if I remember corrected) collected in Sumter County are designated for the local roadway budget and most of this is used for the county road maintenance. Yes, I know, what about the electric cars, this is being addressed at the state legislature level and has yet to be resolved.

If you want to pave more roads you have to pay for it, which means higher taxes. This is part of what caused the 25% increase 4 years ago ($11 million was needed for the resurfacing of Morse & Buena Vista). That tax increase has now long gone and we now have the lowest county taxes in Sumter County history.

The calls for raising the impact fees and taxes on businesses to pay for road maintenance and new roads, a) don't understand the budget and the funding mechanics, and b) don't understand business, businesses don't pay taxes and fees, they only collect them and pass them on to the taxing authority. Taxes and fees are just another cost to businesses just like labor, material, energy costs, etc., and it all gets paid by the consumer in the end.