Further proof TIFs only benefit wealthy developers and nobody else

It’s funny, when you start digging around on the value of TIF’s the jury seems to agree, they have little economic impact. While I have found dozens of studies to prove this, the State of SD and the City of SF have yet to provide a study proving they work. We have been using them well over a decade. Shouldn’t we have data by now that they are effective? I can tell you why we don’t, because they know what the result of that study will be as this story points out;

“Tax increment financing is not a silver bullet solution to development problems. There is no guarantee that the initial public investment will spur sufficient private investment, over time, that creates enough increment to pay back the bonds. Moreover, even if the investment succeeds on paper, it may do so by “capturing” growth that would have occurred even without the investment. Successful TIF districts can place an additional strain on existing public resources like schools and parks, whose funding is frozen at base valuation levels while growth in the district increases demand for their services.”

First off, as I have pointed out several times, we don’t have a ‘development’ problem in Sioux Falls. With over 6 years of record building permits, not enough workers to build these developments, and our out of control property tax and rate increases, the only ‘development’ problem we are having is TOO much growth, TOO fast.

There is also little evidence that TIF regularly provides the job or private sector investment that its supporters promise. Chicago is one of the largest users of TIF for economic development and its program has been one of the most widely studied. Research on Chicago’s TIF program found that “Overall, TIF failed to produce the promise of jobs, business development or real estate activity at the neighborhood level beyond what would have occurred without TIF.”

We saw this with the stupid initiative Mickelson cooked up that thankfully failed to increase tobacco taxes to fund trade education. If TIFs are supposed to help create jobs, why aren’t the developers who are receiving these TIFs helping to pay for the education and a living wage? You would think with the HUGE tax rebate they would be using that money to build a better educated workforce, instead they are only short-changing public education by sticking the money straight into their pockets.

If TIF is going to be used it should be used on things like public infrastructure – roads, sewer/water lines, sidewalks – rather than specific private businesses. This makes it harder to get distracted by non-pecuniary factors and does a better – though not perfect – job of directly helping development in general rather than a specific company or private developer. But taxpayers should be aware of the dangers of TIF and politicians and developers should not tout it as a panacea for jump-starting an area’s economy.

And with the Circus performers we have on our city council now, a TIFiliscious Revolution in Sioux Falls scares me even more. End the developer welfare programs. Eliminate TIFs, not only in Sioux Falls but the entire state.

Metro Council Meeting Update

Councilor Stehly’s Notes on Facebook about the meeting;

Resigning 911 Metro Communications Director Paul Niedringhaus discussing the future structure and governance and oversight of Metro Communications.

Sheriff Milstead now discussing why Metro 911 went independent from the County.. now apparently, they want to come back to the County because of lack of funds. Sounds like the City might be asked to cough up some money as well.

Should Lincoln County come in?…now the Mayor wants to know how the other communities in Minnehaha will feel if the City of Sioux Falls takes over. I say..this needs public scrutiny, discussion and common sense spending.

Beninga now is stating that the Hope was for a regional effort. Surrounding counties might be “turned Off” if this was a Sioux Falls,Minnehaha project.

heriff talking about Metro being on probation…years ago..Gary Hanson time as Mayor..

Four members deciding what the future of Metro 911..I Hope they open this discussion up to the community and all of us on the Council and County…

Barth now talking about a new location..first time I heard about this..How much Jeff and who will fund it?Also Barth inferred that s having the Mayor of Sioux Falls leading the Metro 911 could be a turn off for other communities.

Beninga now asking about the City of Sioux Falls talking on the health care costs for these 911 employees..(a side note..City Council members can’t join the city’s health care.plan. I even offered to pay the total premium, but they said no).

Metro Communications Director Paul Niedringhaus states that health care costs are the number one concern for metro 911… Unfortunately, we all have those concerns in our lives.

Barth is proposing that all governing bodies have one payroll department.

The Argus also covered the MEETING.

 

Noem continues to ignore the $20K bill she racked up with the city of SF

It’s been several weeks, and still no word on when Noem will pay back the city of Sioux Falls, or if she will file an ‘In-Kind’ donation from the city. Either way, she looks like an Elitist Snob. Over at the Wuss College, they felt the (VERY NON-PUBLIC) visitation of the President was a big story. The only big story is that Noem continues to pretend that her private fundraiser somehow was supposed to be subsidized by the taxpayers of Sioux Falls. And our Mayor’s silence on the issue further proves his partisan ways.

Councilors Stehly and Starr are considering a resolution to formally send Noem a bill. Of course it probably won’t pass the muster of a majority vote with so many GOP Noem robots on the council, but at least there will be a public record of asking for the money and the robots voting publicly to allow the fine hardworking taxpayers of Sioux Falls to illegally subsidize a political campaign.

Pay up Noem!

It’s the right thing to do, even if you are so wrong.

UPDATE: Metro Council has sudden meeting

The only place we could find the meeting posted was on Minnehaha County Administration Door. There are a lot of rumors swirling around why the ‘Special’ meeting was called. The obvious one is that the last Metro manager just resigned. I guess the job was posted, and not sure if there was any takers, but look at the sentence in the yellow highlighted area “Discussion on future structure”.

Recently the Emergency Manager for Minnehaha County resigned after there was talk to merging the job into the Sheriff’s office. Doubt he will be replaced. Is Metro looking to merge 911 into the sheriff’s office also? I guess we will have to see the results of the meeting.

UPDATE: The meeting was posted on Wednesday by the City Clerks office, but many people, including the mayor seem to be confused who the council belongs to (City or County). Let’s see, the Mayor is the Chair, and councilors Kiley and Erickson sit on the council with Commissioners Barth and Beninga. Seems to me both entities are involved. The meeting should be posted by both of them. Someone who is attending the meeting this morning told me that everyone showed up except Erickson. I will talk to them after the meeting to see what happened.