TIF districts are bad news.  Those that support TIF districts claim that business won't come to our area if they aren't given some kind of incentive, but TIF is only an incentive to those that the property sits on and companies that could care less if they are in your town or not.  Meanwhile, the rest of us pay for the reduced collection of property taxes because of the creation or continuance of TIF districts.  How?  Let me explain.

First, school, park, and other non-municipal districts can only tax the TIF property at pre-project EAV (Estimated Assessed Value) for the life of the TIF district - generally 23 years (which can be extended).  As the property value goes up because of projects put in the district or infrastructure done, those non-municipal districts lose out on being able to tax the property at post-project EAV.    What about the rest of us?

As the TIF district property tax falls out of the budget, guess who makes up the shortfall in one way or another - YOU!  That's right.  Look at it this way.  Let's say you have 3 other roommates in your house and the monthly rent is $1000, so you and your roommates owe $250 for your share of the rent.  What happens when one of your roommates fails to pay the rent?  The other roommates are ultimately responsible for the shortfall because the total rent of $1000 does not change just because one roommate does not pay up.  Likewise, TIF districts are the absentee roommate in the story.  Meanwhile, you and me and everyone else is expected to make up for the shortfall in the budget.  Look at Chicago as an example of TIF district damage.  In 2007, Chicago had a $469 million budget shortfall, but it wouldn't be that way if Chicago didn't have $555 million in property tax money (they can't touch) tied up in TIF districts.  What is the result?  Property tax increases in Cook County in 2007.  It's election year in Chicago, so don't expect them to tackle their budget, let alone increase taxes in an election year.  TIF districts cover 30% of Chicago, and we wonder why they have budget problems?

Who benefits from TIF districts?  Those that support TIF will say you and I benefit from TIF because of the businesses that move in to the TIF district create jobs.  Ok, jobs are one thing, but look a little deeper.  Who really benefits?  First, the property owner that has the land the TIF district is in wins out huge because the city makes improvements on that property for the business thereby increasing the property value for the property owner - at your expense.  So the property owner wins out, the property increases in value and he or she gets away not having to pay those increases to the city, school, or other non-municipal districts.  Second, absentee corporations win out also because their "construction costs" or any other costs are offset with your tax money as well - with profits from that business going out of town, not to a local business owner or company.

Why do I bring all this up?  Because Teutopolis is looking at establishing their first TIF district to bring minimum wage jobs to town via a Dollar General.  Dollar General has said they need a TIF district to offset $200,000 of "construction costs".  Also, the amount the village will have to pay some out-of-state consultants selling snake oil (TIF districts) to create the boundaries of the T-Town TIF district.  The Effingham Tea Party has been approached to help kill this proposed TIF district and we have accepted the invitation.  We need people in T-Town to get angry and themselves to the next village meeting.  Bring your signs, and pack the place.  Get on the agenda as speaker.  I can hear the questions now, "why does the Effingham Tea Party care about T-Town, they're in Effingham.  Besides I don't like someone outside my town coming in and getting involved in our business".  Fair enough, but the Effingham Tea Party is named "Effingham Tea Party" because our base of operations is in Effingham and Effingham happens to be the county seat.  Nothing more.  The Effingham Tea Party is concerned about everything that happens within the county of Effingham and even the surrounding areas (as we coordinate with other Tea Party groups).  That being said, we would prefer if one of our Tea Partiers that live in the city of Teutopolis to take the lead on this, but if worse comes to worse, we'll "cross the creek" to help out in a more active role.

Want to see how TIF has effected Effingham?  We had a $2 million budget shortfall last year (which the city borrowed money to balance the budget) and we will have a budget shortfall this year as well.  Take a look at the map of Effingham's TIF districts.  You begin to see that large chunk of the city is covered by TIF districts.  So half of the city is essentially paying for the other half of the city.  And you wonder why taxes are high in a city of 13,000?