Ted Noftall on TIF money

 
From Ted Noftall,
Those entities including the City, County and Hospital districts  that contribute a portion of the  property tax they would otherwise receive,  to specifically  defined CRA’s,  do so for one reason and one reason only  –  To Eliminate Blight  within those specifically defined geographic boundaries,  AND before that earmarking can even begin a Blight Study and Finding of Necessity have to occur.
That tax increment  or TIF is earmarked  to finance,  at least in part,  the cost to eliminate that blight  through capital investment.  Either government or the private sector or a crony capitalist  combination of both  can undertake that blight elimination  ….. the success of which being measured by  increased  assessed property values resulting from capital investment.
The next logical development  in this process should have been the sharing of the Tax Increment  among the blight busters  as formulated  by higher assessed values resulting from their respective capital investments,   AND that is where the ball has stalled in Port Orange with the CRA’s retaining all of the Tax Increment as out of an episode of Father Knows Best.
Only in Port Orange the City/CRA’s  did not know what was  best as evidenced by their  bloated personnel budgets and the colossal failure of Riverwalk within the Town Center CRA and the Eastport Business Park within the Eastport CRA…..both of which were public/private ventures which is to say crony capitalism at its worst.
Council needs to be encouraged to immediately convene a joint workshop of both CRA’s to formulate policy regarding distribution of the Tax Increment.
 
Ted Noftall