I was reading Facebook and saw a discussion on the Music Center and then progressed into TIF.  I participated and thought I would copy relevant comments here because Brandon made some good points that allowed me to bring up other information people should know.  My comments are in black, his in blue.

Brandon posted:

This is my understanding: a TIF district diverts all property tax (above the current tax level) to a special fund that can be used for updates that impact that TIF district. They can not use TIF money in the heart of the city when it is coming from the north. The reason Mayor McMasters is complaining about the effect on the schools is they will not get the property tax increase that is going to happen on that land because it was diverted to the TIF fund. However, taxes that would have left the city and gone to the county and mostly benefit townships and Dayton now stay in the city. So there is actually a net increase in LOCAL REVENUE! The development in the district is intended to spur other development which likely is not in the TIF. Then the schools get more money. Also, if the amenities make the city more desirable values of home and land go up, as well as the taxes. This will cause the schools to get more money as well. This is hard to track especially in the short term with the economic climate as volatile as it has been.

Brandon  you have a pretty good understanding of how TIF works in theory and why I always point out that the original Montgomery TIF created to build the I-70 interchanges was a "good" TIF ---- up until the time when they realized they had a lot more money than they needed to pay off the interchanges.  Subsequent decisions after that would not be supported by the majority of residents if they knew what they were trading in order to get a new aquatic center and a new music center.  Even if I am wrong on this point - I will always believe we as residents should have been told about these choices before they were made and that the fact that council purposely hid the details about the consequences was wrong.  

Brandon, I'm glad someone that still believes that the Music Center will increase the economic development in that area so much more than would naturally occur because of the proximity of the interchanges that it makes sense to make this kind of investment, finally concedes that a large portion of that investment would have gone to the HH City School system.  Remember when the city was discussing this they always referred to the school system as some other taxing district.  They told us we had all this extra money and we'd better use it or lose it to some other taxing district if we didn't. 
 
However, I'm waiting now for anyone that still believes this to back up the claim that the rest of the money would have left the city.  Here is what I'm looking at:
 
Last year the city collected about $1 million from the Montgomery County TIF (original TIF created for the interchange improvements) of that:
 
about $650,000 would have gone to the HHCS system if we had paid off the Interchange debt and dissolved the TIF
 
Some of that money also would have gone to MVCTC - another school
 
Some of that money also would have gone to Sinclair college - another school
 
about $18,000 would have gone to our police and fire funds
 
I believe about $100,000 would have gone to Human Services (I believe this but it would be good for someone to verify.  I know the new Human Services Levy will not go to TIF because around 2008 new Human Services, Libraries and a couple other property taxes became exempt from TIF.  This of course leaves a bigger burden on the schools). 
 
Some of that money could have gone to support BMV
 
Some of that money could have gone to pay the rent on the building the city owns and rents to the Court.  It also could be paying the judges, court reporter, bailiff's  salaries.
 
So instead of paying for these things within the property taxes that were already approved by the voters we had an increase in the Human Services Levy.  Also, did anyone else notice that our sales tax is now 7%?  Have the car registration fees gone up?  The County is going to get their money from us to help the "townships".  We as a city through our current city council made the choice to trade property taxes for higher property, fees and sales taxes so that we could build an aquatic center and music center.   
 
Keep in mind that we did not pay off the Interchange debt and we no longer intend to pay off that debt using TIF dollars.  Instead we have chosen to use a fund that normally we use in order to repair or improve the streets throughout the rest of the city.  So that money is no longer available for street needs on the south side of the city (or the north side either). 

Do you believe without using TIF money we would still be having economic development that will raise values throughout the city?

Brandon addressing the TIF district / economic development point of your counter. There will be economic development around the I-70 interchanges. The question is when will it happen and did/will the Music Center and Aquatic Centers boost the likelihood of this occurring enough to justify the cost (I also concede that not everything is the money.  It is important to also evaluate how nice it is to be to be able to go to a closer concert and swimming. Right now I'm going to stick to talking about the money portion and if it turns out that these items do not provide more economic impact than they cost, I'll let others make the argument that it is worth something to have nice things in the community).

The question about whether the Music Center will spur more growth than if it had not been there is a complicated question of course. There are a couple of questions that are fundamental that should have been examined before we started building; such as, how much economic growth would occur without it? I haven't seen anywhere this question has been examined. We know the interchange at Brand Pk brought in Wal-Mart, Sonic, Tim Horton, Bob Evans, Meijer etc without the Music Center. We also see that Troy Pike is bustling. You may or may not know that I have issues with continuing to subsidize the houses that are being built in Carriage Trails. However, I believe that those houses going up there will be 10 times more effective than the Music Center in drawing the kind of businesses City leaders say they were looking for when they announced "The Heights". In reality, not only do I believe that the additional economic development because of the Music Center will be minimal compared to having more consumers in the Carriage Trails area, the fact is we are taking 20 acres of prime tax paying real-estate out of a prime development area so that loss must be taking into consideration when doing the analysis.


I actually could go on for quite awhile but I'll wait again for counter points that I should be considering in my assessment.