How many bucks in NRP money are you talking about? Some of the burbs have 5-10 times their annual budget in TIF funds salted away in bank accounts to use for parks, city halls, community centers, whatever strikes their fancy. These TIF funds were captured from taxing districts for 20 years to clean up blighted areas like farm land. So I was just wondering how much $$$ you're talking about here and how much it is compared to the annual budget.
Renee Jenson WI [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: "Becker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [Mpls] State deficit, local problems Date: Thu, 5 Dec 2002 08:33:42 -0600 "Mark Engebretson wrote: >> I believe that is correct. NRP money comes from tax-increment financing >> (TIF) districts. If not for the districts, the money would flow to the >> general funds of the city, county and school district. The basic concept of >> setting up a TIF district is to allow cities to capture the property taxes >> and use for development, not for general fund expenditures. >Mark is correct in saying that NRP funds are tax increment financing. What >this means in simple terms is that NRP funds are property taxes which are >paid by certain commercial and industrial properties. These funds were >originally targeted to pay off bonds sold to help pay costs for the removal >of blight on these properties. (Folks can argue, effectively, that many of >these properties were not blighted, but this is the theory.) Many of these >bonds were sold in the high interest era in the 1980's and the city >refinanced these bonds, reducing the annual payments (same as refinancing >your house). The difference between the old "mortgage payment" and the new >one, is what was diverted to NRP. Those funds could have also been directed >back to the general property tax revenue stream or used to pay off bonds >early, allowing the full amount diverted to the general property tax revenue >stream earlier. It was a policy choice at the time that this refinancing >was done to try to shift some of the financial benefits of the development >of the downtown to the neighborhoods, sort of sharing the wealth from a >thriving downtown. >Carol Becker >Longfellow _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
