In Our View: Fee-Waiver Effort a Bust

A report from the office of the Clark County Auditor should leave little doubt about the future of the county’s fee-waiver program. The program is unduly costly and places an unsustainable financial burden on the county, indicating that it should be halted.

Adopted in June 2013, the program eliminates permit-application and traffic-impact fees for non-residential construction in the county. The idea was to spur job growth that would increase the tax base and offset the lost fees. According to the draft report from Auditor Greg Kimsey, about $7.8 million worth of fee waivers were awarded to 153 projects from June 2013 to August 2014. As the report concludes, “The funding mechanism for the Program is not sustainable. The current costs of the Program are supported by fees from residential, government, and other construction projects not eligible for waivers.” In other words, the fees not being paid by commercial developers are being passed along to other groups, not the least of which is taxpayers.

As mentioned, this should send a clear message to county commissioners. But few things are clear when it comes to county leaders, particularly Commissioner David Madore, the most vocal champion of the fee-waiver program. Given ample time, including a deadline extension that Madore insisted upon so he could write a rebuttal to the report, commissioners responded only with silence. All along we suspected the reason Madore asked for more time was to delay the report’s release until after the election on the county charter. At least he achieved his goal there.

Now, Madore has called for a separate, independent report on the fee waivers. In truth, Madore’s action continues his curiously disturbing trait of disputing or silencing any opinion that differs from his own. His time in office has been marked by a habit of insisting that he is correct, no matter how high the mountain of evidence suggesting otherwise. Madore’s management style has been one not of leadership, but of bullying and churlishness. In the case of the fee-waiver audit, rather than point out the benefits highlighted in the report, Madore insists upon repeating the process until he hears the answers he wants to hear.

The draft report now goes to the county’s Audit Oversight Committee before a final version is released. Meanwhile, the draft suggests that the fee-waiver program is not providing the hoped-for results. As The Columbian wrote editorially when the waivers were proposed, “The bottom line is, well, the bottom line,” and the bottom line of the fee-waiver program is not beneficial to the county. “While data from the state confirms that some jobs have been created by fee waiver recipients, the Program is not cost effective,” reads the draft. The program has allowed “approximately $4.6 (million) to $6.9 million in fee waivers to be awarded to projects that, according to national studies and past fee waiver recipients, would have occurred anyway.”

That has left taxpayers to pick up the tab for streets, water and sewer, and other projects that benefit developers. Eliminating the fees does not eliminate the need for infrastructure to support new development; it merely transfers the costs. Madore said: “If for some reason our business-friendly policies are unsustainable, we should do away with them. But we shouldn’t second-guess the data.”

That should apply even if the data doesn’t confirm Madore’s opinions, and the data apparently calls for the elimination of the fee-waiver program. We hope the county commissioners are mature enough to heed that call.