Tax Increment Financing (TIF) for municipalities takes funding normally acquired by schools, technology centers, and county governments ($482,943,228 in 2016) for development. Currently, there are no safeguards in TIF laws to keep cities, towns, and county governments from establishing TIF districts in already economically productive areas or areas that would experience growth without the TIF. Other tax receiving jurisdictions (ie. public schools, tech centers, county governments, health departments, EMS districts) have no way to prevent these TIFs from being formed and no legal recourse if they are. Tax Increment Financing may seem like a purely local matter, but because local ad valorem revenue is a revenue stream that is charged against school districts by our state funding formula, any positive or negative change impacts all schools statewide.
Senate Bill 1279 by Jason Smalley (R) was an attempt to reign in TIF for municipalities, and would have provided approximately $300,000,000 for schools - without raising taxes, but failed in committee. Corporate lawmakers (liberal) are quickly narrowing the chances for a teacher pay raise - by snuffing out SB 1279 and other avenues for providing a teacher pay raise, without accompanying tax increases.
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