Due to a bout with pneumonia, I missed the city council meeting last night.
Former councilor Kevin McGee wrote a great commentary for the NWestern on TIF standards (or the lack thereof) in Oshkosh. Money quote:
Without standards, without strict rules identifying what TIF money can and cannot be used for, we're easy marks. If you were a developer or an expanding business, and you knew you could extort a few grand from the public coffers to improve your bottom line, you'd do it too, wouldn't you? Of course you would. Unless of course you had ethical principles, a sense of public spiritedness, a belief in asking what you can do for your country, or something nonsensical like that. Not much risk of that happening around here.
Too bad that commentary didn't appear before the council's vote on the Oshkosh Corp TIF proposal. The corporate press had no interest in looking at the matter seriously; perhaps McGee's commentary could have influenced the vote outcome. We'll never know.
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4 comments:
I will read the piece Tony points to and see if I can learn anything about Tax Incremental Financing.
In Appleton, its usage is questionable. It's questionable if the actual investment is supposed to help the disadvantaged such as affordable housing, local grocery stores without having to have car and the like but actually is used for gentrification (condominiums, theaters with high rpiced admissions etc.)
In Appleton I have used the phrase "positive investment" in which the city should engage without the public/private contracts as opposed to for-profit schemes which wind up to be boondoggles with the city holding the bag. The carrot of tax revenue is used as the bait.
Positive investment looks to the future: things like the hydro electric plants purchased from New Page by City of Kaukauna. Positive investment is also a new library for Appleton.
The general funds of most cities in this area, while not necessarily overflowing, are likely in better shape than the general citizenry is aware. Those general funds, when not absorbed by emergencies, should be actively used for positive investment.
The notion of public/private partnership should be scrutinized and, if found wanting, rejected in favor of municipal control where corners will not be cut to enhance profits.
Example: a public/private partnership should not allow for substandard wages to be paid within the project either in construction or eventual staffing. A living wage should be one of the benefits in any project which a municipality is involved. I have anecdotal stories where this was not the case.
Hi Tony. Sorry to hear you had pneumonia. Glad you're feeling better.
TIF expanded it's usage several years ago. So sometimes you and I agree and other times disagree on when TIF is applicable.
That aside, I agree that as a community, Oshkosh can, within the state statutes create additional standards for TIF usage. But that comes with direction from the Council. The Plan Commssion Joint Review Board is not going to create additional standards on it's own.
The Council needs to direct the Citry Manager and staff to create additional guidelines.
Before you bring an action like this before the council and staff, ask yourself, what types of standards, requirements and limitations do you wish to create and why. It's a mighty big one to tackle, but I believe it would be beneficial and you are up to the task. And you know me. I'm always willing to give you my two cents. ;-)
Here are some check lists from the DOR website.:
http://www.dor.state.wi.us/forms/govtif/pe-109.pdf
http://www.dor.state.wi.us/forms/govtif/pe-222.pdf
Feel much better soon!
At the urging of a few of us on the Council, the City Manager has as a goal for 2010: "Develop a point system to evaluate the worth of TIF proposals." A point system is a way of enforcing standards. I believe I have presented on this blog an example of such a system (from Dallas, I believe).
In Mr. Rohloff's progress report on his goals, he says that the point system is "on hold due to staff changes."
In Oshkosh, a point system for TIF probably would probably not prevent most TIFs from happening. But at least it would let voters know which councilors are in support of TIFs which don't even meet a certain point standard.
In order to do a cost benefit analysis of a TIF, there there has been process developed by the U of Penn. I would not trust a process developed by the very people who decide, when and where a TIF should be used.
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