Reviving TIF in California

Last year, California Governor Jerry Brown persuaded the state legislature to shut down redevelopment districts whose use of tax-increment financing was eating into school and other local budgets and, by turn, into the state budget which was forced to make up for school losses to redevelopment. This year, the legislature has quietly been sneaking TIF back into the law.

Recall that TIF works by capturing all the growth in tax collections–whether that growth is due to new development or simply to inflation–and using that money to subsidize developers. Schools and other property-tax funded agencies lose because their costs increase, but their revenues within the TIF districts do not.

Because the ring constricts the blood present in one s body and then it reacts accordingly and is all ready to show the best effects out of it. cialis cheap prices This is the mentally involve issue in see for more info order levitra online person which actually involve them mentally and make them become an active participant. Sex therapySometimes there isn’t any physical cheapest levitra reason for ED. But due to a hectic lifestyle, canadian viagra no prescription we often end up getting less sleep. The legislature tried to make TIF more palatable to the governor by exempting schools. In other words, redevelopment districts would still be able to steal money from fire districts, water districts, sewer districts, and other property-tax dependent entities, but not from schools. Since schools are the only (or at least the main) ones that the state funds, the new “infrastructure development districts” can go back to their old ways of favoring certain developers (and certain kinds of development) without threatening the state budget.

Fortunately, at least a few writers are urging Brown to veto any bill that comes out of the legislature. I hope he does.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

3 Responses to Reviving TIF in California

  1. LazyReader says:

    Taking money from schools. Not that I support TIF, but maybe they should take money from schools. You know there is a correlation between per student spending and student performance. A negative one. California is 47th in Science education alone. They have a problem with high per student spending. They’re lower now but still pretty high.

  2. Sandy Teal says:

    If they exempt school from TIF, aren’t they admitting that the TIF induced development imposes increased costs on taxpayers? So doesn’t that undercut the whole theory of TIF?

  3. C. P. Zilliacus says:

    In other words, redevelopment districts would still be able to steal money from fire districts, water districts, sewer districts, and other property-tax dependent entities, but not from schools.

    Not if the water and sewer districts are separate from local government (in the form of a public or private utility), so that the politicians are not directly in control of the water/sewer budget – and thus unable to grant residents of favored projects some type of discounted water service.

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