While the petitioners did the right thing by putting this to a vote of the people of the affected area, the TIF should really be voted on by the entire state. Why?
So this is how TIFs work in SD; The developer’s property is valued at a new higher rate once the project is completed, this rate is used to fund city, school and county government, except that new valued tax revenue goes back to the developer for improvements (in other words he gets a tax refund to build his personal project). So while these values are up, the money isn’t coming in so the county and school district must make that revenue up by taking it from the state which is funded by sales taxes paid for by the entire public body of the state. So while there may be a TIF in Pennington County, Minnehaha County residents are funding this TIF thru sales taxes to make up for the lack of school and county funding. TIFs are not only BAD for the effected communities but they hurt every resident in this state! Some would argue we pay these taxes anyway, and you are correct, but instead of bailing out school districts and counties we could use the revenue to improve state infrastructure. What a f’ing concept!!!!!!
