Gary Hoyland says he was present at a school board meeting last year when an audience member stood up to complain about recent budget cuts. The man, Hoyland says, accused officials of Springfield School District 186 of not being candid with the public. The criticism didn't go over well: In response, board members and administrators "ripped" the man to shreds, Hoyland says.
It was a defining moment for Hoyland, a school social worker in Decatur who has two children in Springfield public schools and a third attending a private one. Hoyland decided to stand up for 186, maybe even get the school board to do the same thing.
Hoyland's opportunity came when the City of Springfield recently proposed a new Tax Increment Finance district on the northeast side of town. TIFs are supposed to encourage economic growth in an area by diverting property tax revenues from taxing bodies, such as public schools, to developers. TIF opponents argue that these districts lock school districts out of desperately needed revenues, their main source of income. Springfield already has six TIFs. It doesn't need another, Hoyland says. Campaigning against it, he helped persuade 186's school board to go on record opposing the TIF earlier this week.
It was the first time the board, which calculated it has lost $12 million to TIFs between 1981 and 2001, stood up against TIFs.
The proposed TIF would take up about 62 acres of land northwest of Sangamon Avenue and Dirksen Parkway. Unlike other TIFs in the city that keep District 186 from any share of property tax revenues generated by TIF development for 23 years, the new TIF would start sharing tax revenues with 186 and other taxing bodies in its fifth year of life. City officials estimate the revenue-sharing plan will generate $4 million for the schools over the TIF's 23-year lifespan.
City officials argue the area is in such poor shape it won't be developed without TIF incentives. No development means no property tax revenues at all, for anyone, they say. Hoyland and others argue that there's enough interest in the area already that no TIF is needed.
Hoyland points to seven parcels within the proposed district purchased by a partnership between Cagnoni Development and Andy Van Meter, chairman of the Sangamon County Board. During the past few years the partners have spent more than $1 million buying up the lots. Marshall Lemme, the city's TIF administrator, says they're trying to land a "big box" retailer for the area, which would be rezoned to retail from light-industrial once it becomes a TIF district. The City Council plans to vote on whether to approve the TIF on Nov. 18. A public hearing will take place at the council's chambers on Oct. 20 at 6 p.m.
The developers' interest in the area has a catch. They are the ones who proposed the TIF in the first place. "There's no incentive to develop if you're waiting for the TIF," Hoyland concedes.
Distict 186 is waiting too, for someone to figure out how it can grab its share of the pie.
