Henry County board approves change in impact fee distributions

Henry County officials will now have more flexibility in how impact fee money is spent.

Henry County officials will now have more flexibility in how impact fee money is spent.

The Henry County Board of Commissioners voted at its Feb. 5 regular meeting to approve a change in how impact fees are allocated.

The county has been authorized since 2003 to collect development impact fees which have mostly been used to pay down debt associated with system improvements, but county officials identified certain line items in which expenditures to restricted solely to debt service in cases where that is no longer needed, specifically in the area of parks and recreation where as much as $2 million is in an account that has not been touched for some time.

The vote was to eliminate that kind of restriction and see that revenue is divided evenly among the county’s five commission districts. How it is spent would be determined by the commissioners in the future.