Russ writes:
>However, I am a little confused. Can Carol or someone tell me how our tax
>capacity can almost double from $360 million to $770 million in nine years?
>And my second question is how much of that decertified TIF money will be
>needed to pay off the NRP debt service and continue to fund NRP? And if
>there isn't enough, will we need more?
You ARE confused...$770 million is more than double $360 million. <grin>
(Actually, it's double plus 15 percent, or 115%.)
The math does seem pretty aggressive. A rough approximation: city assessors
are assuming a 10 percent growth for nine years to get the 115% jump. That's
right; double-digits for nine straight years.
That seems like a lot - but remember, there is a lot of "stored" taxable
valuation in all of our homes, since our tax bills cannot go up by more than
X (10?) percent annually, but assessed value hikes have been much higher
than that. Even if the economy hits the rocks, this stored-up "residential
tax capacity" will keep tax base humming along for at least a year, probably
more. That's good for city fiscal stability, though not so much for our
pocketbooks.
It would be interesting to know how much the city's tax base has grown in
the LAST nine years. That's probably the most solid way for we amateur math
geeks to judge how much blue-sky is involved here.
David Brauer
King Field - Ward 10
