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Some Spring Hill subdivisions think the county charges them too much to manage their street light bills. They are looking into cutting the government out of the loop.
By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 9, 2001
Some of Spring Hill's largest subdivisions want out of their street lighting deals with the county government.
The administrative fees the county charges to collect dues and conduct business on behalf of the neighborhoods' municipal services benefit units have gone up too much, too fast, leaders said. County commissioners increased the amounts charged to 18 MSBUs this year and about a dozen last year.
More increases are on the horizon next year.
Perhaps by cutting the government out of the loop, these homeowners groups reason, the costs can go down, rather than increase.
"When you look at how much it costs to write a $250 check, it costs about $35. It doesn't make any sense," said John Bloom, who represents the Forest Oaks MSBU to the county. "We're looking into a better way of doing it."
Representatives of Silverthorn and Seven Hills share similar concerns.
"We'd still have the MSBU," said Jim Erickson, president of the Seven Hills homeowners association. "We're investigating the possibility of the homeowners association taking on the administration from the county."
County officials have said the main benefit of having the government administer the unit is its ability to collect dues from every member through tax bills.
"But when you're dealing with government, it is costly," acknowledged Jan Jones, special assessments coordinator.
In past years, the clerk of the circuit court had charged MSBUs about three-quarters of 1 percent of their annual budget to cover transaction fees, and county government charged 2 percent for administrative costs. An analyst's review determined that the rates were too low, and should be closer to 3.5 percent to the clerk's office and 3.2 percent for the county.
Commissioners then implemented a five-year program to increase the charges. For a while, surpluses in the MSBU budgets covered the difference. As the reserves were depleted, the fees have started to rise.
With the increases, some homeowners are seeing their annual lighting assessments more than double.
As the county continues to reallocate the administrative costs for the next two years, Jones added, the charges are likely to go up again. To avoid the increases, she said, the communities can dissolve their relationship with the county in the same way they set it up.
All they need to do is submit a petition signed by 67 percent or more of the affected property owners. So far, she said, no one has requested the official petition form.
Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative, which serves most of these groups, would be happy to bill any entity for the lighting costs, spokesman Ernie Holzhauer said. However, he cautioned, collecting from all property owners can grow difficult over time.
Then the homeowners association gets saddled with the bill.
"The challenge that organization has to be successful in this endeavor is to acquire some sort of leverage for payment," Holzhauer said. "The difficulty is two years down the road when a single member of the property owners association doesn't want to pay."
Not a problem at Seven Hills, Erickson said. "It's a mandatory homeowners association."
The real issue, he said, is proving to property owners that the association can handle the account more efficiently than the county. Also, he said, the county shows the Seven Hills MSBU as having 1,172 members, while the association has only about 900 members.
The association is looking into who the others are.
"We're really in an information-gathering stage at this point," Erickson said.
So, too, is United Communities of Hernando County, a cooperative organization of homeowners associations.
Bloom, the group's president, has assigned the organization's government committee to research all the different ways the communities can take care of their street lighting needs without using the county resources. The power companies shouldn't care, he said, so long as they get paid.
"We are in hot pursuit of finding a better way to do it, less complicated and at less cost," Bloom said. "The fees are outrunning the budgets."
After public hearings on the issue, commissioners said they, too, would look for options to help the residents. Their primary idea was to review whether the creation of a single MSBU encompassing all the affected areas might help reduce costs.
Staff members still are looking into that possibility, although County Attorney Garth Coller suggested it might not be acceptable to members of the larger MSBUs who pay less than members of the small ones.
Combining the units would require the consent of each.
- Times staff writer Jeffrey S. Solochek covers Hernando County government and can be reached at 754-6115. Send e-mail to solochek@sptimes.com.