Commissioners said the district's schools desperately need the money, which outweighed fears that an increase in fees would slow growth in parts of the county.
All five School Board members sat in the front row of the commission meeting asking for the increase of nearly 21 percent — or $1,605 — for each single-family home not built in an age-restricted community.
School Board Chairwoman Debbie Stivender said the schools need the funds badly, and she was worried that commissioners were not going to approve the full fee.
"They were kind of going back in forth in there, but I'm very grateful to the board for investing the time to go through all the research and see the need that we have," she said.
Commission chair Jimmy Conner, along with commissioners Welton Cadwell and Sean Parks, voted to increase the fees paid when a permit is issued from $7,719 to $9,324 for single-family dwellings.
Multi-family homes will see an even sharper increase, jumping from $4,636 to $8,045 or 74 percent, and fees for mobile homes will rise from $2,537 to $5,856, about 130 percent.
The amounts came from a study by the Tampa-based firm Tindale Oliver, which calculated the cost of building classroom space for the students who arrive along with new communities. By figuring out how many students on average occupy each housing type, the firm computed the fee home builders should pay to offset the cost of expanding school capacity to accommodate the new students.
Commissioners Leslie Campione and Tim Sullivan said the fees were just too high for them to support. Campione suggested looking into separating the impact fees based on growth in a particular area while Sullivan wanted them decreased to a lower percentage.
Campione said she worried the increased cost would deter builders from developing homes in the north and central parts of the county where growth lags behind south Lake.
"I think it's safe to say this won't effect the economy in the south part of the county and that the growth will continue, but in the north part, I think it's safe to say that it will make it more difficult," she said
Several members of the Home Builders Association of Lake and Sumter counties also spoke against the hiked fee, suggesting the schools to seek an alternate route to get cash.
Commission Chairman Jimmy Conner, a former school-board member, said there aren't many alternate revenue streams for schools and the state doesn't provide many options.
"I've been looking for alternate funding sources for 15 years, and you could dance in a circle looking…" he said. "The impact fee does hit one group of people too hard…but I don't know where you get the money from if you don't have an impact fee."
Commissioners will be monitoring the effects the boosted fee has on building permits and will talk about lowering it if it has an adverse effect.
Stivender said she isn't too worried because the fees didn't negatively affect growth throughout the region in the past.
"I think once we start monitoring, it they'll see," she said. "It's the same routine as 11 years ago. Even though we raised impact fees, growth was still coming, and the schools needed the help. Here we are a decade later, and it's the same situation.
"This is going to help us greatly with the amount of growth we have seen."