Comm No 0021.009 - Testimony - CA-7 - PONC fund and Maintenance fund

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FARMLAND INFORMATION CENTER 111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 Cost of Community Services (COCS) studies are a case study approach used to determine the fiscal contribution of existing local land uses. A subset of the much larger field of fiscal analysis, COCS studies have emerged as an inexpensive and reliable tool to measure direct fiscal relationships. Their par- ticular niche is to evaluate working and open lands on equal ground with residential, commercial and industrial land uses. COCS studies are a snapshot in time of costs versus revenues for each type of land use. They do not predict future costs or revenues or the impact of future growth. They do provide a baseline of current information to help local officials and citi- zens make informed land use and policy decisions. 111114 A11111 d IIII y In a COCS study, researchers organize financial records to assign the cost of municipal services to working and open lands, as well as to residential, commercial and industrial development. Researchers meet with local sponsors to define the scope of the project and identify land use catego- ries to study. For example, working lands may include farm, forest and/or ranch lands. Residential development includes all housing, including rentals, but if there is a migrant ag- ricultural work force, temporary housing for these workers would be considered part of agricultural land use. Often in rural communities, commercial and industrial land uses are combined. COCS studies findings are displayed as a set of ratios that compare annual revenues to annual expenditures for a community's unique mix of land uses. COCS studies involve three basic steps: 1. Collect data on local revenues and expenditures. 2. Group revenues and expenditures and allocate them to the community's major land use categories. 3. Analyze the data and calculate revenue -to -expenditure ratios for each land use category. The process is straightforward, but ensuring reliable figures requires local oversight. The most complicated task is inter- preting existing records to reflect COCS land use categories. Allocating revenues and expenses requires a significant amount of research, including extensive interviews with financial officers and public administrators. ry Communities often evaluate the impact of growth on local budgets by conducting or commissioning fiscal impact analyses. Fiscal impact studies project public costs and revenues from different land development patterns. They generally show that residential development is a net fiscal loss for communities and recommend commercial and indus- trial development as a strategy to balance local budgets. Rural towns and counties that would benefit from fiscal impact analysis may not have the expertise or resources to conduct a study. Also, fiscal impact analyses rarely consider the contribution of working and other open lands, which is very important to rural economies. American Farmland Trust (AFT) developed COCS studies in the mid-1980s to provide communities with a straight- forward and inexpensive way to measure the contribution of agricultural lands to the local tax base. Since then, COCS studies have been conducted in at least 151 communities in the United States. $1.25 $1.00 $.75 $.50 $.25 $.00 III 1111111111111111111111111111111111 uuilllpuuui I 111111 CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 VIII I III llfill 11111111111 111111 ltesluaaein9tluaIV li us lu lamess $.30 A rlicuudtuuure $.37 Median cost to provide public services for each dollar of revenue raised. q00 111111111111111111111111111 00 11111111111111111111111111111111111 :.m ,:.... Ti ust www.farmlland.org (800) 370-4879 www.farmlandinfo.orq @farmlandinfo USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service www.nrcs.usda.gov 11,