June 22, 2023 Camden County Commission meeting at 10:00 a.m.

I attended the June 22, 2023 Camden County Commission meeting at 10:00 a.m.

All commissioners were present.

The first agenda item was Beach Drive – CID Presentation – Rachel Orr.

It sounded like this was for the establishment of a CID. I’m still waiting on clarification on this. Nobody was there to talk about it so they just read it.

The second agenda item was Report on SB 190.

Simply put, SB 190 is new Missouri legislation that will provide a tax credit to senior citizens to offset increased real estate property taxes on their primary residence.

It has been signed by the Governor. The Commission will vote to put it on the ballot for Camden County once they see the ballot language for the bill. If passed by the Commission, it will be on the ballot for the April election.

The third agenda item was the PACE Ordinance.

Chris Foster, a local developer, discussed this program with the commissioners.

PACE is an acronym for Property Assessed Clean Energy. PACE allows clean energy-qualified construction costs (windows, HVAC, solar, roofing, appliances) to be financed separately from the purchase price of a property. The PACE financing becomes a de facto lien on the property that is paid off annually by additional payments that are handled like property taxes.

PACE financing is only permitted if the local government body passes an ordinance authorizing it. According to Foster, Versailles and Lake Ozark have both passed such ordinances.

Commissioner Skelton asked Foster how PACE makes the property more affordable?

(The answer to this is that it makes the property cheaper for…wait for it…the Developer.)

By passing the cost of PACE-qualified items onto the property assessments, the cost carried by the developer to build the rest of the project is greatly reduced. Foster explained that PACE financing is provided by 501(c)(3) non-profit companies. (Sheesh, Gadfly, is there anything that non-profits can’t do these days? What a wonderful capitalist society we live in, Comrade Possum.) The PACE debt is paid back as an annual loan, but some companies will collect the PACE payments monthly. Foster also said that PACE debt can be paid off early.

A representative from the Collector’s Office mentioned that a downside of the PACE program is that the PACE payments are attached to the property tax bill. She had heard of examples where people weren’t able to pay their PACE tax bills and lost their homes. One of her concerns was that the county is then put in the position of collecting and distributing these owed PACE monies. And if the homeowner can’t afford the PACE payments, the county would be the entity that would tax sale the home.

Springfield has problems with PACE?

Commissioner Gohagan made his position on PACE clear. He felt that people needed to educate themselves and make smart financial decisions about how to spend their money. Buyers could encounter predatory practices in any financial market.

It seemed like Foster was mostly interested in making PACE available for commercial projects and not necessarily for individual home buyers. PACE programs could reduce the initial construction costs for developers who wanted to build apartment complexes and commercial projects. This would make it easier for the developers to get financing for their projects because the extra PACE costs would be segregated from the main construction cost.

Commissioner Williams wanted to make sure that the county would charge an administrative fee for the extra burden of processing these PACE payments.

The Commission then directed the County Attorney to draft a PACE ordinance.

This was a real credit to Chris Foster. He did a great job of explaining the program and acknowledging any concerns the county officials had with it.

(The PACE program is interesting because it does seem to assist developers by passing on the PACE costs to the eventual owners of the finished buildings. I’m comfortable with it at the commercial level because I’m pretty confident that purchasers of large projects like commercial buildings and apartment buildings are relatively sophisticated buyers who have the attorneys who can suss through all of these details.

I am a little more concerned about new home buyers who might buy individual houses with solar panels, windows, and appliances for a low initial price and then discover that it’s hard to sell their home because nobody wants to assume the PACE lien for a 5 year old dishwasher, a window their dog has been licking for half a decade, and a bunch of hail-damaged solar panels.)

The fourth agenda item was Camdenton R-III School Board TIF Letter.

Camdenton Superintendent Sean Kirksey spoke to the Commission regarding the Lake Oasis/Ferris Wheel/Timeshare Blighted People project and the TIF that’s associated with it.

Kirksey explained that 80% of Camdenton School District’s budget comes from local taxes. Board policy is to oppose any TIF that abates more than 50% of property taxes. The school district opposes the efforts to seek a State TIF (also known as a Super-TIF).

Presiding Commissioner Skelton stated that he has an issue with anybody who tries to declare valuable lakefront property as blighted in an effort to redevelop it. Especially when that property is currently occupied by timeshare families who enjoy their time there on a weekly basis.

The Camden County Commission expressed a unanimous disapproval of the efforts that have been made to develop this project with TIF-related tax abatements. They declared their intent to write a letter of disapproval that will be sent to the Lieutenant Governor’s office along with the Camdenton School District’s letter.

And that was that.