All About Trust

I think about 95-percent of the people I talk to in Fairfield don’t understand Tax Increment Financing, or TIF funds. Trust me, the people who serve on local boards that use the money, know all about it.

There are board members in our community who feel they were sold a pig in a poke. Back in 2014, the city came to them asking for an extension of TIF for 12 more years. All of the taxing bodies agreed that 40-percent of the money collected would go back to the taxing bodies. I’m talking about the schools, the college, the library, the park district…

Since 2014, like clockwork, the agreement was good. Forty percent of the TIF money collected was redistributed to the other taxing bodies. But now, if appears the city is going to re-calculate the payback.

In other words, the high school, which gets around $100,000 a year each spring, hasn’t seen a dime. The Park District is missing its $33,000 payment.  That’s two to three teachers’ salaries and a park employee. It’s a big deal. And it has broader consequences than just the money the high school and the park district counted on that has evaporated. It’s a trust issue. Granted, the deal was pushed through by a previous administration---but if Mayor Brent Maguire moves the goalposts, he is going to chafe a whole lot of folks.

There was a precedent here. The taxing districts got three years of payments. They got 40-percent of the money collected. That was the surplus. Now there is great fear that the Mayor will find another definition for surplus----and that the districts are going to get much less money from TIF.

It puts the Mayor in a horrible position. The city’s broke. But if he doesn’t live up to a previous administration’s agreement----trust will be lost. 

Count on it.