Also, when these meters were installed, dozens of new street signs went in to mark where to park, where not to park, and “No Parking, 3AM-6AM.” If the DDA installed these meters and are projecting them to add revenue, then they should revisit the actual numbers.

If the City put them in as part of their dubious scheme to increase revenue by adding meters to neighborhoods, then I think the results are clear and this scheme has proven to be the farce most people thought it was. I also wonder if the cost of all those new enforcement signs was factored into the net revenue projections for the meters?

Please forgive me as I make the discussion about budgets as dry as a hot prairie wind.

The DDA Board said all of the $1.3m increase between this year’s projection and next year’s budget was from rate increases.

If that’s true, why is there a $300k increase in meter revenue when meter rates will be constant? Add another $100k for validations and misc revenue, and next year’s budget contains about $400k in volume increases.

Given the relative tightness of the DDA budget, a $400k decrease might be the difference between maintaining an adequate fund balance and eliminating some programs.

Also, a few items in this year’s projection deserve more explanation. I’m not suggesting they’re wrong, but it seems odd that First & William is at $112k thru 6 months, but they project $130k for the whole year.

I think the DDA is doing some good work, but they have a substantial budget, and with that, they deserve close oversight.

My skepticism of Tax Increment Financing not withstanding, the word “syphon” was not meant to give you – or anyone else – a poke. I did want to moisten a dry subject with a slangy term.

Sorry.

And even if the AAPS was getting the money, it would just mean more cuts to other state programs. Tax diversion is not free money. It’s a decision to spend tax money on development and other types of subsidies rather than on other government services.

Personally, with the meager results and inflated salaries at SPARK, I’d rather see the money go to the City, County, and the schools. And Vivienne is right about what goes on at the State level, too. In lean times, our schools should receive priority over corporate incentives.

At a time when schools (statewide) are not receiving what they were promised from the state, maybe it is time to re-examine that policy and practice. School taxes are not a “free” way to sponsor development projects or any other economic initiatives in a state where everything is a zero-sum game.

C’mon, the conventional parlance is that tax-increment finance entities “capture” taxes of other taxing authorities, which has this idea that the funds would otherwise go someplace else baked right in. In any case, I think the other taxing authorities whose taxes are captured by the Ann Arbor DDA are those you’ve named, plus Washtenaw County. From a May 2009 Chronicle article:

What are the “respective taxing bodies” to which the legislation refers? In the case of the Ann Arbor DDA, there are three other taxing authorities besides the city, whose taxes the DDA captures: Washtenaw County, Washtenaw Community College, and the Ann Arbor District Library.

As DDA board member, and county commissioner, Leah Gunn, points out in her comment above, the Ann Arbor DDA does not capture school taxes. Those are captured by the LDFA, also under a TIF arrangement, and the LDFA then contracts with SPARK to operate the business accelerator. In very round ballpark numbers, it’s about $1 million that goes to the LDFA. Given that our local school district is looking at a several million dollar deficit, could that LDFA money help with the gap? No.

Or at least not directly. That school tax revenue would go to the state anyway, which would then redistribute it from the School Aid Fund on a per-pupil basis to all the schools of the state. [I believe that in setting up the Smart Zone LDFA's, the state gave an assurance that schools would be "held harmless."] Ann Arbor is a “donor district” for the School Aid fund, which means that AAPS gets back less from the School Aid fund than its property taxes put in.

It’s fair to see the LDFA as a way to benefit Ann Arbor by keeping local school dollars in our community that would otherwise go to other districts via the state’s School Aid Fund. Whether it’s good public policy for Ann Arbor to have this benefit at the apparent expense of other communities in the state is a matter of debate. Part of that debate is whether it’s good public policy to have a redistribution of school tax money so that Ann Arbor is a donor district in the first place. Also a part of that debate is this: If the state is really using funds, say $X, to supplement the loss of Ann Arbor schools taxes to other districts so that the schools across the state are held harmless, why doesn’t the state just use $X directly to fund business accelerators in particular communities.

Could you fill us in on the governmental units whose taxes are siphoned off to the DDA? The City of Ann Arbor? Washtenaw Community College? The Ann Arbor District Library? It would be handy to have a definitive list.

Sooner or later, it would also be handy to have a list of the governmental units whose taxes are siphoned off the the LDFA (Local Development Finance Authority, funder of SPARK).

Thanks!