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Farmland Information Center - Tech ... Cost of Community Services Studies http: / / farm. tic.niu.edwfic -ta tafs-cocs. htm I AMERICAN FARMLAND TRUST • FARMLAND INFORMATION CENTER 38 COST OF DESCRIPTION COMMUNITY Cost of Community Services - studies are an inexpensive, easy -to- understand SERVICES way to determine the net fiscal contribution of different land uses to local STUDIES budgets. Municipal records are reorganized to assign the cost of local public services to farms, forests and open lands, as well as residential, commercial and industrial lands. The result is a set of ratios that compare the annual income to the annual expenditures for different land uses. COCS studies are a snapshot in time of costs versus revenues for each type of /ARNLANO TNFOANATTON CENTER land use. They do not predict future costs or revenues or the impact of future 11411VN: growth. They do provide a baseline of current information to help local officials and citizens mak a informed land use and policy decisions. METHODOLOGY Fact Sheet COCS studies involve five basic steps: 1. Define the scope of the project and identify land use categories to study (e.g., residential, commercial, industrial, farm and forest land). - 2. Collect data on local revenues and expenditures. 3. Group revenues and allocate them to the land use categories identified in step 1. 4. Group expenditures and allocate them to the land use categories identified in step 1. 5. Analyze the data and calculate revenue -to- expenditure ratios for each land use category. The process is straightforward, although ensuring reliable figures requires the assistance of local officials and service providers. The most complicated task is interpreting existing records to reflect COCS land use categories. Allocating revenues and expenses requires a significant amount of research, including extensive personal interviews. HISTORY 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 industrial development as a strategy to balance local budgets. Rural towns and counties that are likely to benefit most from the information provided by fiscal impact analyses rarely have the expertise or resources to conduct a study, which tend to be expensive. Also, these studies rarely consider the fiscal contribution of farm, forest and recreational lands, which' are very important to rural economies. American Farmland Trust developed COCS studies in the mid -1980s to give communities a simple, inexpensive method of evaluating the contribution of farm, forest and ranch lands to the local tax base. COCS studies have been conducted in at least 40 communities in the Northeast and Midwest. 1 of 5 5/11/98 3:12 PM