BuckeyeBlog

It’s pretty common to see home builders advertise on billboards around the outer loop of any city, certainly including Columbus. It’s common to see those signs advertising "Homes starting in the 110’s" and "Pickerington Schools", too.

A few years ago a would-be developer in Pickerington ponied up a few hundred thousand dollars, I think the initial figure discussed was something like $500,000, to help building new school buildings. It ended up being less, something like $300,000, still not chump change. (Sadly, the board of education, in its wisdom, folded the money into its $50 million budget, which meant that the large fund had no affect whatever on any student or anything done at the school, except that it caused the treasurer to write a slightly different sum in his projections than he otherwise would have.)

There’s a developer in Illinois who’s done something similar, except he was smart enough not to give it to a school board. He built a charter school instead .

Now there’s an impact fee Ohioans could live with.