Tussling Over TIFs: Pros and Cons

April 13, 2014, 8:25 a.m.

NOTE: For 40+ additional discussions of these issues, 2006-2015, see "TIFs: Links to Blog Essays."

Tough TIF Talk

Introduction: For years, TIFs have been controversial. ("Tax Increment Financing," by reducing a developer's property taxes, or directing them solely to his or her project, has the effect of transferring taxpayers' money to the bottom line of private, for-profit ventures.) Proponents cite a "benefit" -- essentially the existence of the developer's project -- while skeptics list a rather substantial list of the costs and burdens they believe more than outweigh any such benefit under any rational benefit-cost analysis.

The Gazette for Sunday, April 13, 2014, led its "Insight & Books" section (editorials, guest columns) with two guest columns taking opposite sides regarding the merits of TIFs: "Weighing the Pros and Cons of Tax Increment Financing; Talking TIF" -- found on the Opinion Page of The Gazette's Web site, and in hard copy as: Nicholas Johnson, "Costs Outweigh Possible Benefits," pp. A9, A12, and Chad Heiman, "TIF a Necessary Tool for Growth" pp. A9, A12.

Talking TIF: Costs Outweigh Possible Benefits

Nicholas Johnson
The Gazette
April 13, 2014, pp. A9, A12
http://thegazette.com/costs-outweigh-possible-benefits-20140413
[Submitted as: TIFs’ Multiple Costs Outweigh Any Possible Benefit]

There are many reasons why further enriching the backers of for-profit, private ventures with taxpayers’ money is a really bad idea. [Photo credit: Patrick McDonough.]

In 2006 I began a blog. Dozens of its 1000 essays deal with reasons to oppose TIFs. See “TIFs: List of Blog Essays,” http://fromdc2iowa.blogspot.com/2014/03/tifs-links-to-blog-essays.html.

Any one of them is reason enough to reject a TIF. To approve it, proponents need to show why none applies.

The issue is not whether a TIF has a single benefit. Benefit-cost analysis requires we total all the costs and burdens of that TIF and weigh them against its individual benefit.

Few if any can pass that test.

Ideological hypocrisy. How can those supporting free private enterprise, capitalism, and marketplace forces, who think “government is the problem” and want it “off their back,” justify taking money from the public collection plate?

Anti-democratic. City councils need voters’ approval of bonds for legitimate government projects. Yet they can give our money to their friends’ private projects on a whim.

Lowered credit rating. TIFs can impact credit ratings. Coralville went from a Moody Aaa credit rating, the highest, to a “lower medium grade” Baa2 in two years.

Opportunity costs. Spending money on one thing costs the lost opportunity to spend it elsewhere. Johnson County Supervisor Rod Sullivan once found a diversion of $700 million of property off the tax rolls. As a result, either we pay more taxes or Supervisors cut needed programs.

Unfairness to neighbors. The TIF-granting body’s neighbors often lose out as well – other communities and school districts with less money in their budgets.

Unfairness to competitors. TIFs tilt the playing field. They unfairly upset a free market, punishing honest competitors and benefitting no one except the TIF recipient.

Risky business. Money’s always available for good deals. If an entrepreneur, family, friends, investors, venture capitalists, and banks aren’t willing to fund a project, maybe taxpayers shouldn’t either.

TIFs complicate taxes. We don’t deserve more tax complexity and even less transparency.

“Money can’t buy love.” Why compete with bribes? A business that needs port access to the Pacific Ocean isn't coming to Iowa. If it did, it would leave for a bigger bribe. Maytag, offered $100 million to stay, left anyway.

TIFs are unnecessary. The Corridor is one of the fastest growing, lowest unemployment areas of Iowa. We already have what businesses want: skilled labor, transportation and communication infrastructure, quality education, cultural attractions and outdoor recreation.

TIF grantors’ poor skills, record. The subsidy-grantors' record is not great. Elected officials are more skilled at keeping contributors and constituents happy than at evaluating taxpayer-funded business proposals. TIFed projects have gone belly up, missed deadlines, and new jobs goals. With reasonable follow-up and transparency we’d know about many more. But TIFs in Iowa have more lenient provisions, and less oversight, than in most other states.

“Need” is unknowable. Many projects will go ahead without subsidy. If tax breaks are available, of course developers will say they need them. Maybe this is blackmail. Maybe they need to look harder for funding. There’s no way to know.

At a minimum, here are questions to ask before approving TIFs:

What is this government’s past record, when we compare promised results with ultimate return or loss?

Why is this project needed?

Why does that need exceed all conventional needs for public funds?

What will other government units lose? How much more will their taxpayers have to pay?

Of all possible TIF projects, why is this one a top priority?

Who benefits: all citizens, a small segment or primarily the recipient?

How much money is involved?

Why are those who will profit unwilling to invest what is needed? Are their reasons equally applicable to taxpayer funding?

Does the business plan indicate financial success, or reveal risks of failure?

If and when the recipient fails, skips town, goes bankrupt, or misses deadlines, how will taxpayers be protected?

What relationships are there between the potential recipient and the officials approving the funding?

How will the recipient’s unfunded private competitors be harmed?

TIFs shouldn’t be used at all. If used anyway, let’s do the wrong thing better:

Leave the tax code alone. Taxes are taxes, gifts are gifts – through appropriations, fully disclosed and audited.

Don’t privatize profits and socialize losses. It’s our money. Don’t give it. Loan it or invest it. Earn us some interest – with a City or State Bank. Invest our tax money; take an ownership share. Give us at least a gambler’s chance at occasional profit. Publicize the details.

We don’t have a fascist state, just a fascist economy, government and private enterprise blended to more resemble a purée than a stew with identifiable ingredients.

In Washington, D.C., it’s billions of tax dollars; in Des Moines hundreds of millions; in Iowa’s cities, TIFs. Without a taxpayer revolt, it’s unlikely to change.
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Nicholas Johnson of Iowa City maintains www.nicholasjohnson.org and http://FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com.

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TIF a necessary tool for growth

Chad Heiman
The Gazette
April 13, 2014, pp. A9, A12
http://thegazette.com/tif-a-necessary-tool-for-growth-20140413
The 21st century global economy we live and work in is consistently evolving. The rapid pace by which business owners must adapt to meet market demands has never been more challenging.

As a community and region it is critical that we promote public policy that allows companies the option to not only operate their business under the status quo, but create an environment that promotes capital investment, company expansion and job creation.

MISINFORMATION

On the local level, the key tool to aid in doing this is Tax Increment Financing (TIF). There has been misinformation about TIF; specifically, how it works and the side effects of the tool being used. Marion has chosen to be forward thinking and responsible in using TIF as an incentive for companies to do business in our community.

It has been written that TIF incentives are awarded by a City Council without any public approval process; this would violate Iowa Code. A public hearing before the City Council is required for any new TIF project before it gets approval.

An additional public hearing must take place before an amendment to the Urban Renewal Area (designated area in which TIF project occurs) is approved. The process is public and allows for citizen involvement.

How do cities protect their investment? TIF incentives are financed through new property taxes that are generated by the development; current public funds are not used to finance the TIF incentive. An estimate is provided in the development agreement, but the actual TIF award is determined by the assessor. Taxpayers are protected because whoever has title to the property will be subject to pay the associated property taxes. With new development, no existing revenues are lost because of TIF.

ESCO GROUP’S TIF

The ESCO Group in Marion was awarded a TIF incentive package for construction of its new corporate headquarters in Marion’s Tower Terrace Road corridor. The ESCO Group is a Marion-based company that provides plant automation, electrical construction, power engineering, testing and safety training. The City of Marion provided ESCO with a $200,000 grant and an annual 60 percent rebate on their property taxes starting in 2013 and expiring in 2022, The total rebate will not exceed $1 million, per the agreement.

Because of this incentive package, ESCO chose to locate in Marion and brought a capital investment of $5.8 million for the community. The expansion is leading to the creation of 25 new, highly technical, quality jobs in the corridor. A law of economics states that people respond to incentives. The ESCO Group responded by building in a newly developing region in Marion and the commercial property tax base is expanding because of it. Many projects would not have happened without the economic development tool of TIF.

Before the development of the ESCO headquarters, the 2.85-acre piece of ag-land that ESCO now sits on would bring an estimated $4,000 in property taxes. Following development of this land, the estimated property tax bill will stand at an estimated $130,000 annually. I think we can all agree that a 1,315 percent increase in assessed value is a quality return on investment for Marion, our schools and our citizens.

The return on investment is magnified when one considers that new employees in the community will need places to live, stores to shop and restaurants in which to dine. Existing private business benefits because of TIF. The positive impact of this economic development tool is felt well beyond the brick and mortar involved with new construction.

ESCO CEO Ray Brown told us: “By opening up this valuable development area, Marion has great opportunity to expand its tax base to more commercial-light industrial, helping ease the tax burden of residential while also creating quality of life opportunities within this development.”

FAIR PLAY DEALS

Positive community development is everyone’s goal. One recent opinion was that “trying to move businesses from one community to another with competing TIF bribes is a lose-lose game,” and I would agree with that assessment.

That is why the communities in the Cedar Rapids metro area have signed fair-play agreements with each other establishing guidelines for communities when creating TIF incentive packages in the Corridor. When Marion experiences expansion, the Corridor as a whole benefits; the same can be said about business growth in the entire Cedar Rapids metro area.

Marion is one of the fastest-growing communities in Iowa, and that presents challenges, but we are growing our commercial and industrial tax base in a responsible manner. Making policy decisions or sweeping generalizations about TIF without facts, and based on one occurrence or anecdotal evidence, is dangerous.

TIF is anything but a lose-lose tool — it is the tool that allows private enterprise to flourish while giving communities the opportunity to realize its true economic potential. It’s a win-win for everyone.
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Chad Heiman is Communications Manager for Marion Economic Development Company. Comments: chad@medcoiowa.org

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TIFs: Too Many Negatives

March 25, 2014, 9:25 a.m.

Introduction: There has been a little spurt of TIF (tax incremental financing) stories and comments recently.

On March 18 an op ed column of mine was published by the Press-Citizen: Nicholas Johnson, "TIF: If You Can't Beat 'Em, Insist on More Transparency," Iowa City Press-Citizen, March 18, 2014, p. A7, embedded in "TIF Apology," March 18, 2014. Its assertions regarding the categories of reasons to oppose TIFs were supported by the earlier, "TIFs: Links to Blog Essays," March 16, 2014. [Photo credit: Patrick McDonough.]

The point of the March 18 blog essay/column was that TIFs are merely a natural instrument within a fascist economy. The reason they are the wrong thing to do lies within the nature of our economy rather than the nature of TIFs. Like other mixes of government and private money, however, they can better protect the interests of taxpayers (whose money it is that funds grants to business) if the money is loaned and invested rather than gifted -- thereby producing a return of interest and dividends, like any other conventional transaction.

The Gazette continued with articles that, in part, were efforts to justify TIFs and tax breaks to for-profit buinesses as a legitimate part of a capitalist economy. Chelsea Keenan, “The Benefits of Tax Breaks,” The Gazette, March 23, 2014, p. D1, online as “Are Tax Incentives an Effective Economic Development Tool?.” Rick Smith, "The Upside of TIFs," The Gazette, March 15, 2014; online as "TIF Incentives Can Bring Happy Endings; New Jobs, Infrastructure Improvements, Advancement in Shovel-Ready Sites Grow with Help of Incentive Programs."

I continued to take issue with those arguments for TIFs in the following letter to the editor:

Too Many Negatives, Too Little Upside to TIFs
Nicholas Johnson
The Gazette
March 25, 2014, p. A6
Your “The upside of TIFs” (March 15) needed what Paul Harvey used to call “the rest of the story.” No one I know argues there has never been any benefit from any tax increment financing deal, anywhere, at any time.

But that’s not the issue in a rational benefit-cost analysis.

There are 10 to 20 categories of reasons why all TIFs are a bad idea (See http://fromdc2iowa.blogspot.com/2014/03/tifs-links-to-blog-essays.html). And I have yet to see any TIFs benefit that could begin to outweigh all of those categories of disadvantages.

Here’s an example:

There would be “a benefit” to letting elementary school students simply roam freely throughout the community without parental supervision or need to attend school. They might better develop their natural curiosity and sense of self-reliance.

But the costs of that proposal — lack of student safety and education among them — would so heavily outweigh its potential benefit that no one seriously would propose it.

So it is with TIFs. An occasional “upside?” Of course. But hardly ever enough to outweigh the multiple downsides.

Nicholas Johnson
Iowa City

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TIF Apology

March 18, 2014, 7:20 a.m.

Note: And see "Addendum: If North Dakota Can Prosper from a State-Owned Bank, Why Not Iowa?" at the bottom of this blog essay/op ed column; and "TIFs: Too Many Negatives," March 25, 2014.

Note: The following was submitted to the Iowa City Press-Citizen with the headline, "TIF Apology," and was published this morning with the headline below. That headline's use of the word "transparency" is somewhat misleading. The column is not calling for governments to be more forthcoming and transparent regarding the details of their gifts to for-profit enterprises under the current system. [See, e.g., "TIFs: Too Many Negatives," March 25, 2014.] It is calling for a different system, a recognition of the reality that ours is a blended corporate-government economy, one that should substitute investments by taxpayers for what are now simply gifts. Taxpayers should get an ownership share, and a return on their investments. (The hard copy version also had a link to a nonexistent site. As reproduced in this blog essay the link is correct.) -- N.J. [Photo credit: Patrick McDonough.]

TIF: If You Can't Beat 'Em, Insist on More Transparency
Nicholas Johnson
Iowa City Press-Citizen
March 18, 2014, p. A7
I now realize that the dozens of my columns and blog essays over the years, itemizing in detail the evils of TIFs, grew out of a faulty premise.

It is not easy to admit a mistake, especially when one has made it so often. But you are owed that admission – along with a fuller explanation.

We’ve heard that “seeing is believing.” However, it is also true that “believing is seeing.” And what my upbringing and early education imbedded in my brain was a belief that colored my vision like the rainbow from a prism in the sun.

And what was that belief? It was that we have a capitalist, free private enterprise, market economy. Oh, sure, we had socialist enterprise as well: the Interstate highway system, national and state parks, libraries, public schools and universities. But business did business and government did government.

Now comes the realization that what I once saw so clearly was but a child of the ignorance born of ideology. It was the believing that made possible my seeing -- like the lines from the poem, “Last night I saw upon the stair/A little man who wasn't there.” (Hughes Mearns, 1899.)

I was believing in, and seeing, an economy that wasn’t there.

That’s why TIFs were seen to be an aberration, a cancer simultaneously attacking both capitalism’s foundation and taxpayers’ pocketbooks. (For numerous links to sources, see “TIFs: Links to Blog Essays,” http://fromdc2iowa.blogspot.com/2014/03/tifs-links-to-blog-essays.html.)

Like "Amazing Grace," I was blind, but now I see: We don’t have a capitalist system. We probably never did.

So how should we describe our economy? The word “fascism” carries too much baggage from World War II -- dictators, suppression of opposition, aggressive nationalism, and even racism. “Fascism” doesn’t describe America today. But from Washington, D.C., to cities, counties and states all across America, in terms of an economy, ours is the economy of fascism.

The more acceptable word today, “corporatism,” is less accurate. Because the economy we have is a blend, more resembling a purée than a salad or a stew with identifiable ingredients.

Cities’ taxpayers who cannot afford the tickets to an NFL, or even college football game, invest billions in stadiums, given as gifts to attract the billionaires who own teams of millionaires.

States have multiple funds of taxpayers’ money used to compete with other states by giving it away to attract businesses.

Washington is essentially an open bazaar, awash in money gladly given and generously rewarded.

Is this system corrupt? Of course. Welcome to the real world. All economic systems can have corruption – communist, socialist, capitalist, or our fascist.

Is our fascist economy less efficient than a true capitalist economy? Absolutely. Everybody is handling other peoples’ money. Is it less humane than a socialist system might be? Of course. When it comes to minimum wages or safer working conditions, our fascist economy is still driven by the character Gordon Gekko’s belief, in the movie "Wall Street," that “Greed is good.”

Folks, in the words Walter Cronkite used to sign off the CBS Evening News, “And that’s the way it is.” That’s the system we have. Get used to it. The beneficiaries love it. The victims don’t revolt.

What can we do? Tweak the system. Insist our governments invest our money rather than giving it away; that they take a share of the ownership – and the profits. Insist on detailed accounting of the return on our money they’re investing.

If a fascist economy is wrong, but intractable, we can at least try, as John Carver bemoans in another context, to “do the wrong thing better.”
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Nicholas Johnson maintains the website www.nicholasjohnson.org and blog http://FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com.

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Addendum: If North Dakota Can Prosper from a State-Owned Bank, Why Not Iowa?
It only makes sense, so long as we're committed to a fascist economy, that we should try -- as the last line of the op ed column suggests -- "to do the wrong thing better."

One of the most obvious positive tweaks to our fascist economic system would be for governments to enter the banking business. (a) Instead of putting such balances as cities, counties and states have into commercial banks, or credit unions, they could earn more on our money by doing the banking themselves. (b) As a part of a proposal that financial aid to business favor loans over gifts (or what would hopefully become "investments" earning a return) the governmental unit could make loans to the favored businesses from the government's own bank.

Think this is a crazy idea? Think again. It's a fascist economy that's the crazy idea. City, county and state-owned banks are a big improvement over what we have, in our effort to do this "wrong thing better."

But who would ever do such a thing? How could you ever find a government willing to take on its local, commercial bankers?

Take a look at North Dakota: Robb Manelbaum, "What North Dakota’s Public Bank Does for Small Businesses," New York Times, March 13, 2014

North Dakota uses the bank to funnel deposits from state agencies back into the state’s economy through . . . loans, teaming with local private banks that initiate the transactions with borrowers. The state-owned bank typically takes half of a business loan, and the interest rate on the state-lent portion is normally one or two percentage points below the market rate.

In January, the Bank of North Dakota played a bit part in an ideological skirmish in the blogosphere after a young activist, Jesse A. Myerson, suggested putting a public bank in every state as one of “Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For.” The piece led to some interesting discussions, including this response that Mr. Myerson’s suggestions were actually conservative reforms — and that the state-owned bank was responsible for there being more small-business loans in North Dakota than in neighboring states. . . .

[P]ublic banking advocates point most hopefully to efforts in Vermont. Last week, 15 Vermont towns passed resolutions urging the state legislature to establish a public bank. It could be very beneficial to the small community banks and the state. Even big cities could do this . . ..

North Dakota, Vermont -- why not a "City of Iowa City Fascist Economy Public Bank"? How about it Councillors? # # #