By: Diane Benjamin
The One Normal Plaza TIF began 10/19/2009. Luckily, all the TIF reports are on-line. To make it easy, I posted them all here:
The purpose of a TIF is to cure blighted areas. The Town gets to keep any increases in property taxes in the TIF district. That money has to be used in the TIF, usually its to pay back money borrowed to support developers. Normal didn’t do that in this TIF, in fact they aren’t doing much of anything but collecting money from naturally rising property values.
This TIF encompasses the old Soldiers and Sailors properties and 305 Pine Street. A complete map is included in each report above.
The Equalized Assessed Valuation in 2009 of all the properties was $758,486. At the end of FY 2015, the EAV was $910,569.
The Town of Normal’s only investments have been 2 Route 66 signs for $4,283 and professional services for $18,569.
The only private investment was for the 305 Pine property – $359,711, but that investment isn’t reflected in the assessed value of the property: https://blnnews.com/2016/05/16/normal-sick-of-your-government-yet/ After last night’s Council meeting – Normal owns it! No more property taxes collected there – everybody else will have to pay more.
The reports show what Normal wanted to do in the TIF:
Since 2009, this TIF has only generated $70,057, so scratch the wish list.
Worse, there is a BIG problem with the TIF reporting:
Reports are required by year showing a running fund balance. That means the ending balance in one year is the beginning balance in the next.
Except when the reports aren’t correct.
The ending Balance for 2013 was $20,366. (See page 3)
The beginning Balance for 2014 was $16,841 (See page 3)
$3,525 disappeared!
(That’s a huge problem considering TIF are highly regulated)
This is a perfect example of a FAILED TIF.
Even handing out money to developers couldn’t lure them.
Yearly meeting are required to discuss the TIF. This is from page 15 of the 2015 report:
The 2016 report won’t be out until at least September. It won’t reflect the sale since the year ended 3/31/16.
Another good reason not to share tax revenue with the town of abNormal.