Sheriff wants Shasta County board to reinstate impact fees

Last week, during annual budget hearings, the board approved the sheriff’s budget, settling at around $83 million in planned expenditures — about $12 million less than last year, due to capital projects that are now completed, deputy county CEO Erin Bertain confirmed. 

During the hearing, as Sheriff Michael Johnson forecasted the financial landscape of public safety in Shasta County, he resurrected the question of impact fees. Flying through his department’s complicated budget needs, he proposed two changes he’d like to see at the county level: reinstated impact fees and another attempt to implement a sales tax. 

“[Impact fees] do offer a revenue source where we can improve services,” Johnson said. “It’s not going to solve our budget needs, but we need revenue coming in one way or another.” 

Impact fees were indefinitely suspended in early 2024 by Supervisors Kevin Crye, Chris Kelstrom, and former Supervisor Patrick Jones. They’re one-time charges that builders pay when they embark on a new project. Paid by developers, impact fees are intended to compensate for the effects a new development will have on schools, parks, transportation, and other public resources. 

In Shasta, past impact fees have been a source of revenue for libraries, public health, sheriff patrol facilities, fire mitigation, and other services. During board discussions in 2024, Crye suggested that eliminating the fees would encourage growth and development in the county. But reporting from the Record Searchlight earlier this year found that permits for new construction actually fell behind during Shasta’s first year without the fees. 

Nevertheless, Crye and Kelstrom have both cited the elimination of impact fees as evidence of their strong decision-making in office, with Crye calling himself a “tax fighter” during what turned out to be his losing campaign for reelection as supervisor. He’s at times backed his perspective by citing a Supreme Court case, which sided in principle with a California homeowner challenging the fee he was made to pay, but actually upheld impact fees as constitutional — as long as they’re linked, at least somewhat, to the actual cost of development. 

Johnson used his budget presentation to both recommend reinstating impact fees and moving towards implementing a public safety sales tax. But only one of the two is within the county’s immediate control, impact fees. An impact fee can be imposed by the county, but legally speaking, must demonstrate a “nexus,” or clear connection, between the fee charge and the infrastructure the fee will support. Taxes, in contrast, are usually subject to voter approval.

In recent years, public safety sales tax measures have been presented to voters both county-wide and in the city of Redding. Both attempts failed. But Johnson still hopes the county will consider moving towards another attempt at a sales tax.

To argue for that idea, he cited a similar initiative enacted in Butte County last year, a possibility that District Attorney Stephanie Bridgett also mentioned in her presentation about the DA’s financial hardships. Multiple local prosecutors have recently relocated to Butte to join that county’s district attorney office for higher pay and better benefits, something made possible by the sales tax measure. 

At last week’s budget hearings, a common theme emerged from the sheriff, DA, public defender, and probation departments, as each department head described their teams as under-resourced to varying degrees. They said recruiting and maintaining staffing remains a challenge given noncompetitive salaries in Shasta, and described how changing legislation at the state level can present new unexpected costs to local public safety sectors. 

Reinstating impact fees, Johnson emphasized, would help. Crye sparred briefly with the elected sheriff over whether it was even his place to make such a recommendation, once again backing his own decision to eliminate the fees and referring to them as an “illegal tax.” But despite Crye’s continued opposition, impact fees could return as Shasta’s board shifts. With Redding City Council member Erin Resner now the heir-apparent to Crye’s seat, it’s possible the fees – and their associated revenue – could return to Shasta as Sheriff Johnson hopes. 

Asked by a reporter if she would support impact reinstating fees, Resner didn’t answer directly, instead asking two rhetorical questions indicating that those who profit from development should carry the burden of that development’s costs. She added that its important to remember that any time a fee is eliminated there is always an associated cost to be paid somewhere, either in the short-term or the long.

Meanwhile Supervisor Allen Long indicated that he would “absolutely support” reinstating impact fees while Supervisor Matt Plummer was less definitive, saying he would want to do some research on the legal scope of impact fees before committing to a position on them. 

Plummer did definitively state that he would not support another sales tax. He said the community’s past rejections of sales tax measures indicate how little trust the public has in how their elected officials are handling public finances. He added that he would want to exhaust all other solutions to bolstering support for public safety before asking taxpayers to contribute more to the county.

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