New Year’s resolutions for your TIF areas — part 1
The new year has begun, which means the recently released 2020 tax rates and assessed value information is now available for your community to use as it begins to plan how it will use TIF funds in 2020 and beyond.
To maximize the use of TIF funds, it is important to know exactly where your community stands. Establishing a baseline for evaluation and completing a comprehensive analysis of each TIF area is a best practice for assessing how to move forward. Here’s what you need to account for in your analyses:
Establish a baseline
- Evaluate whether your 2019 collections were in line with expectations, and investigate any significant discrepancies between estimated and realized amounts
- Weigh how expected and unanticipated events impacted your ability to utilize TIF funds in 2019
Comprehensive analysis of each TIF area
- Estimate revenues both with and without new development
- Identify the expiration dates of your TIF areas (and TIF area components) and the resulting revenue and taxing unit impacts of those TIF expirations
- Summarize debt and pay-as-you-go obligations
- Develop estimated cash flows in order to effectively plan the use of TIF revenues
Part 2 of this article will provide additional information about TIF area details that should be considered in your annual analysis.
If you have any question or if we can be of any assistance in helping you evaluate and plan for the use of your community’s TIF funds, please contact us.
