Tax Increment Financing (TIF) District 2 is described in city budget narratives as running south of the downtown but north of Taylor Street.
Annual TIF 2 expenditures generally include:
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$250-300,000 in economic incentives to Target
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rehab, repairs and/or improvements to Barb City Manor and the Municipal Building
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about $150,000 in transfers to the General Fund
This year, improvements at Founders Elementary (which lies south of Taylor) are planned as well.
ASSS*, from the middle column in the table below, stands for the expenses that reliably reflect area-wide improvements: alley, sidewalk, stormwater and street.
Once you wrap your mind around how few dollars, relatively speaking, go to helping the district at large, get a load of the ballooning fund balance.
[table id=63 /]
Nice little pile o’ slush they’ve got there.
There is a TIF 2 plan in place (PDF p. 23), but the city is $2.8 million behind in following it. If they’ve changed their minds about some of the projects they should declare a surplus and return the extra tax increment portion to its rightful owners.
We should keep an eye on this, is what I’m saying.
It’s also kind of wacky that the city could be sitting on that kind of money and not enjoy any investment interest. Unlike the Central Area TIF, TIF 2 only has the property tax increment as revenue — except for FY2009, marked **, when they also transferred $362,000 from TIF 1 that they obviously didn’t need.