Fayette County's

mayors remain resolute in saying that they've written their final intergovernmental

agreement on impact fees for a new county jail.

Impact fees

are charged to developers to help pay the costs of new government services

and facilities made necessary by growth. County leaders are hoping to

use the fees to reduce the 2.5 mills in property taxes currently devoted

to building a new county jail.

County commissioners

Dec. 14 approved a new version of the agreement that would have preserved

the possibility that the county might one day charge the cities per diem

fees to keep municipal court prisoners in the jail.

The cities

approved a version earlier that, according to county officials, would

preclude such fees. And while city officials disagree that their language

would necessarily forbid the charging of fees, they also argue that there's

no reason such fees should be charged, because city residents already

pay property taxes to maintain the jail.

The cities'

latest version includes a new sentence that simply guarantees space for

the cities' detainees.

Language in

the commission's latest version included a new sentence stating that "the

county's ability to house inmates at the jail facility may be contingent

upon the payment by the governing authorities of a per diem for municipal

court detainees."

Mayors gathered

for lunch Friday to discuss that new language, and Mayor Bob Lenox of

Peachtree City brought a proposal to add yet another sentence stating

that "said per diem may only be charged if the county has first satisfactorily

demonstrated to the governing authorities that:

"1. Tax

equity exists between the county and the governing authorities or authority,

and

"2. The

governing authorities or authority have not already paid for the relevant

jail space through ad valorem taxes, court surcharges or any other means."

"I'm trying

to figure out some way we could have some wording we could all live with,"

Lenox told The Citizen prior to the mayors' meeting. "I think the

jail is that important."

But city leaders

maintain that their residents already pay more than half of the property

taxes used to maintain the jail, and if impact fees are imposed, will

pay more than half of the impact fees to build a new one.

For instance,

Lenox said, Peachtree City residents paid almost $1.5 million in property

taxes to operate the jail in 2000, about 35.4 percent of the $4.2 million

operating cost. And the city has about 35 percent of the county's population.

And if impact

fees had been charged for new development in 2000, Lenox said, growth

in the cities would have provided 70 percent of the $1.6 million that

would have been collected in impact fees to help pay for construction

of a new jail.