Why don’t developers contribute more toward school construction?
A11: There are currently three ways that developers help pay for the cost of new growth in District 200 – impact fees, transition (or lag) fees, and land donations. An impact fee is a one-time charge that is paid at the time of occupancy and which is intended to pay for the “impact” that property will place on services. By law, impact fees can only be used to build schools or purchase land. A transition or “lag” fee is designed to pay for some of the costs to educate new students between the time they enroll in school and the time the District first receives property taxes from the new homes. Money from transition fees goes to the school district’s educational fund. Developers may also donate land to a school district in lieu of paying impact fees. The amounts that developers pay for the above fees are set by the local governments not the school district and vary among the different municipalities in District 200. For example, the City of Woodstock and the Villages of Wonder Lake and G
