Cities, developers resist increased oversight of TIF
“In Lincoln, tax-increment financing has helped transform aging warehouses into spiffy storefronts and a polluted railyard into Pinnacle Bank Arena.
But Mike Groene comes from the Wild West.
The state senator from North Platte has seen tax-increment financing, or TIF, used as a bribe or to help people artificially raise the value of their land, he says.
“That is wrong,” he told members of the Legislature’s Urban Affairs Committee on Tuesday during hearings over two bills he sponsored this year, LB238 and LB445, intended to clamp down on TIF.
Tax-increment financing allows developers to redirect property taxes on value they add to an area — using that money to help pay for improvements that have some public benefit rather than as taxes to the city, school district and other entities. The money comes from a bond that is repaid over 15 years.
Under state law, TIF projects must meet a test saying they would not be built “but for” the help of the city. The money is also supposed to be used for redevelopment, not new development.”
Plihacek, Zach. Journal Star 24 February 2015.