North Egypt News

 City of West Frankfort City Council met June 10.

Here are the minutes provided by the council:

City Of West Frankfort Tif Iii Public Hearing 

1. Mayor Arview Called The Meeting To Order At 5:30 P.M. We Are Live. This Is Not An Official Meeting Of City Council This Is A Public Hearing About The Proposed Tif Iii District. We Have Moran Economic Development With Us.

2. West Frankfort Tif Iii Overview & Description: Jarod With Moran, Stated Tonight The Purpose Of The Hearing Is To Answer Any Questions About A Proposed Tif Iii District. A Tif Has To Do With Property Taxes, But It Does Not Impose Any Additional Tax Or Increase Any Property Taxes In Anyway. It Does Not Cause The Property Owner Within The Boundary Area To Owe Any Additional Taxes. It Does Not Change A Properties Zoning Or Any Of The Permitted Uses Of The Property. It Does Not Impose Any Additional Laws, Regulations Or Other Limitations Which Would Otherwise Inhibit Your Ability To Use Your Property As You Wish. That Is A Few Disclaimers What A Tif Is Not. What A Tif Is: A Financing Tool That Is Used By Local Governments. The Rules For Illinois Tif Are Specific For The State And Used All Over The State And Also In The City. There Are Two Existing TIFs. The First One Is The Industrial Park Tif That Is Out West Of The Interstate. Tif Ii Is Central On The City. There Is A Map We Have If Anyone Is Curious Of The Tif Boundaries. Tif Allows A Revenue Source For Municipalities To Make Improvements In The Area. Infrastructure Improvements, Streets Or Utilities, Public Spaces, Enhancing The Community. It Can Help Attract Private Investment Through Redevelopment Agreements For All Types Of Developments. It Will Help Create Jobs, Helps Economic Growth Within The Community. It Strengthens Local Tax Based. A Tif Is Designed To Help Improve An Area With Increasing The Assessed Values, Which Then Helps All Of The Taxing Bodies. Tif Funds Can Only Be Used Within A Boundary Area. Our Role In The Process Here Is To Help The City Establish A Tif. The State Of Illinois Has Its Own Rules To Establish A Tif. Generally, It Is About Four To Six Months Of Events, And Activities. Part Of That Was We Did A Feasibility Study To Determine If The Area Qualified For Tif. From There We Created A Redevelopment Plan, Which Is What The City Would Like To Do With The Tif Program. Tif Can Only Be Used For Certain Eligible Cost Within The Area. We Had A Joint Review Board Meeting; Taxing Districts Were Invited To Come Out. Tonight, We Are Here For The Public Hearing, We Will Listen To Questions Or Comments From Members Of The Public. We Had To Do A Mailing To Any Person That Lives Within Seven Hundred And Fifty Feet Of The Proposed Boundary. If You Received A Piece Of Regular Mail That Means It's A Notice That You Are Within That Distance To That Boundary. It Will Not Affect Your Property In Any Way. If You Received A Piece Of Certified Mail, That Means You Are The Registered Tax Payer Or Property Owner In This Tif Boundary. The Only Change You Will See With Your Property If You Are In The Boundary, Is You Will See A Tif District Iii Line Item On Your Tax Bill. Since Tif Does Not Increase Your Property Taxes In Anyway That Taxing District Which Would Be Along With The City, The County, The School. But Different From All Of Those Taxing Bodies Tif Has A Rate Of 0.0 Percent, Because It Does Not Affect Your Total Tax Rate. What Is Does Do Is, If Someone Was To Do A Project That Will Cause Their Property Tax Evaluation To Go Up, You Then Would See Money Go Into The Tif Fund. The Tif Captures Revenues From Increases In Property Values. If You Live In The Area And Never Do Any Projects, This Boundary Area Had Some Stagnant Declining Property Values You May Never See Anything Contributed To The Tif Line Item, Or May Just See A Little Bit. The City's Goal Is To Improve The Area. We Have Been Working With The City On An Application For Tif Funds. How The Process Would Work Is, If You Have A Project To Rehab A Structure Or Make Repairs To Building You Could Fill Out An Application And Potentially Get Some Tif Funding Through The City. That Would Be Approved By The Council. How That Works Is That If You Did A Project And That Caused Your Property Taxes To Go Up $1,000.00 The City Can Say We Can Reimburse You A Portion Of That $1,000.00 That Is Captured By The Tif Fund Over A Period Of Years For Eligible Costs Associated With That Project.

3. Public Comments/ Questions: The Mayor Stated For Those Watching At Home We Do Not Have A Portable Microphone To Move Around The Room, We Will Try To Reiterate The Question That Was Asked. 

Do You Have A Time Line When All Of This Starts? Jarod Stated The Tif Would Start If They Adopt It This Year, Which The Adoption Will Be Up For Consideration At The Meeting On The 24th. If It Is Approved Then It Works On The Property Tax Cycle, Next Year Will Be The First Actual Year It Would Show Up On The Tax Bill. Since Taxes Are Collected A Year In The Rear, The First Tif Payments Would Start To Come In 2027.

Who Sets The Priorities As Far As How The Funds Are Spent? Jarod Stated A Lot Of This A Reimbursement, If You Want To Do A Project It Would Get Approved You Would Do Your Project Then That Increase In Value After The County Comes Out And Assess Your Property Your Tax Bill Will Go Up To Reflect Those Improvements, Then That Is What Gets Paid Out. As Far As Prioritizing Funds, If You Have A Project If It Meets The Requirements Of The City. The City Approves The Funding, That Is How The Project Is Prioritized. As Far As Public Projects If There Is A Water Or Sewer Line Or Streets To Be Replaced, That Is Identified By The City And Generally Goes In Order Of What Is The Most Pressing Need.

I Have A Hole In A Storm Drain In My Yard That Needs To Be Addressed. Jarod Stated In That Case Since It Is Not An Increase In Property Taxes, It Just Comes Available. As The Tif Starts To Age, That Is When Those Funds Start To Accumulate, That Gives The City More Flexibility To Do More Projects. Any Funds Spent Out Of The Tif Will Be Up To The City Council. You Will Need To Make A Request Through The City.

Is This Project Going To Ever Be Complete Or Is This An On-Going Thing? Jarod Stated Tif Has A Life Per The Statute Of Twenty-Three Years. Sometimes The Goals Are Smaller Projects. Sometimes After Goals Of The Tif Are Done, The Tif Can End Early. Usually With A Tif Like This Will Be Used To Make Improvements Over Time.

Now The City's Street Department Make Improvements On The Road, Will This Be An Addition To That? Will It Take Years For Funds To Build Up To Fund All Of Those Things? Jarod Stated It Is Hard To Say, If Nothing Happens In This Tif, Based On Historic Property Rates, It Will Not Generate Much Money To Do Much Of Anything. The Idea Is The Tif Is A Tool To Incentive Development To Make Things Happen That They Otherwise Would Not. Whenever Those Redevelopment Agreements Are Done With Specific Developers Or Projects It Is Very Rare That The Municipality Would Give One Hundred Percent Of That Tif Increment To Any Developer In A Single Year. The Idea Is For The City To Collect Some Even When They Are Paying Out In Those Agreements It Does Allow The City To Build That Fund Up. In A Lot Of Cases There Are Other Funds That The Tif Can Support. The Tif May Not Be Able To Cover The Entire Cost Of The Street But It Can Support A Shortage If There Was Some Funding Available. Tif Can Also Be Used To Off Set Those Other Funds That Can Be Used For Other Portions Of The City Where Tif Funds Can Not Be Used. Tif Can Only Be Used In Those Certain Tif Boundaries It Will Take Some Time For This Get Enough Revenue To Do Big Projects.

Will The City Raise These Funds For Other Things? Jarod Stated That Is The Big Catch Of Tif, It Can Only Be Used Legally For Eligible Costs For The Area. You Can Use It For Engineering Plans, Other Professional Fees, Other Planning Initiative That Have To Deal With The Boundary Area. Aside From Those You Are Talking About Hard Costs, The Dollars Have To Be Spent On The Properties In The Area. Utilities, Infrastructure, Repairs, Rehabs Of Structures. Legally The City Can Not Take The Money Out And Use It For Pensions, Salaries Or Other Things. The Mayor Stated From My Point Of View, Each Time An Application Comes (Like Our Other Tif Districts) We Send It To Moran They Consider The Eligible Cost And Then They Tell Us What They Recommend And Then We Vote On That Recommendation If We Want To Do That Or Not. My Personal Reason For Wanting This Tif Was For A Residential TIF, Which Would Improve Properties In West Frankfort. We Do Not Want To Do The Entire Town And Hurt The Taxing Bodies To Much By Doing That. We Are Just Doing A Portion Of Town Right Now, And Hopefully Expand. When You Were Talking If It Is City Things Like Infrastructure Type Things My Personal Feeling Is That Those Should Go Secondary To Actual Development Costs To Residences. We Have Other Funds We Can Use For Improving, Roads, Water And Sewer Lines. I Do Not Want To Take Money Out Of Tif Funds To Do That, That Doesn't Then Put Money Back Into The Tif Fund. Improving Property Value S Does Put Money Back Into The Tif Fund.

Are The Funds Going To Be Reported Annually In Your Budget? Jarod Stated Per The State There Is An Annual Report That Is Due. The City Auditor In Addition To The City Finances Does A Separate Audit Of The Tif District. Then We Assist Filing That With The Illinois State Comptroller. Following That Is What Is Called An Illinois Joint Review Board Meeting.

When A Tif Closes Down, Does Any Of The Extra Funds Have To Go To Other Adjacent TIFs? Jarod Stated No, At The End Of The Tif It Is Generally That There Is Two Options: You Have To Commit The Funding To Projects To The Boundary That Is Getting Ready To Expire Or If There Are Any Main Funds That Are Not Committed To Projects That Is Declared Surplus Goes Back To The Taxing Bodies. Tif Funds For Any TIFs That Are Continuous To One Another Can Be Used Again For Eligible Costs In Those Neighboring TIFS. There Is A Benefit To Having Your Tif Districts Touch Because It Gives You More Flexibility In Between Those. It Is Not That The Fund Has To Be Moved Out Of The Tif Into A New TIF.

Can Someone One Loose Their Homes Because Of This, Like If They Want To Widen 57? Jarod Stated This Wouldn't Be Anything Where Someone Is Going To Lose Control Of Their Property Or The City Is Going To Mandate What You Can Do With Your Property, Or Somebody Is Going To Take Your Property Away. Hypothetically, The State Wanted To Widen 57 And That Is Entirely Separate I Do Not Know Anything About That. But The Short Answer Is No The Tif Does Not Have Nothing To Do With Taking Peoples Homes.

What Does The Tif Have To Do With Future Developments, Could A Dog Pound Be Opened Next To A House? Jarod Stated Tif Has Nothing To Do With The Local Controls Of Zoning Or What Folks Can Do With Their Property. If Tif Is Going In A Place It Doesn't Open Up The Option For Someone To Open Up A Dog Pound Next To Your Residence. What Is Does Do, If You Own Property And You Are Interested In Doing Some Of Those Projects Where You Would Incur Some Of Those Eligible Costs That I Described. Once That Application Is Finalized, The Goal Is That Folks Will Fill Out Those Applications And Do Projects. Commissioner Warren Stated This Is A Residential Tif Not A Business Tif. The Mayor Stated Tif Doesn't Designate, I Thought It Did When I Originally Talked About This. That There Was A Specification On A Commercial Tif Or Residential Tif, But It Is Not Really Like That Is It? It Is Just A Tif. Jarod Stated Those Decisions Are More Municipal Policy. In This Case If You Guys Wanted To Do Residential Tif, That's Why We Included So Many Residences. But If Something Was Zoned Commercial, And Wanted To Be Used For Commercial Use And They Had The Same Eligible Costs. The Mayor Stated The Purpose Of This Is To Focus More On The Residential Side. When You Improve A Property, Property Taxes Naturally Goes Up, And That Gives The City More Money. We Are Incentived To Help You Do That Through This Project.

When The Application Comes Available For Those Of You Who Owns Property, The City Encourages You To Fill It Out. Our Information Will Be Available, If You Have Any Questions.

The Mayor Stated A Question From Live On Facebook, If I Am In The Tif And Want To Put A New Roof On And I Am Quoted $5,000.00 I Submit My Form To The City And It Gets Approved, How Much Will The Tif Cover Of The Cost? Jarod Stated It Can Vary On How The Agreements Are Structured. If The City Wanted To Give You Fifty Percent Of It, And The Assessor Came Out And Says You Got A New Roof, And Your Property Value Went Up.

Because The Increase In Property Taxes You Paid Because Of The New Roof, We Will Give You Half Back Until You Hit $2,500.00. That Is An Example. It Is Tough To Say How Much A Tif Could Help Out With Out Knowing The Details Fof What You Are Going To Do. The Mayor Stated It Will Be A Case-By-Case Basis.

The Parcels Used Were Based On The County, We Can't Bisect Any Existing Parcel Lines. Because Then You Would Be Splitting Tax Liability, Which Doesn't Work. If There Is An Issue With The County, We Could Work With The City To Fix Those Issues.

The Mayor Stated Any Map Discrepancies; The Map Is Just A Visualization Of Actual Parcels That Are Included In The TIF.

If We Need To Get The Ball Going, To Get Development To Happen In Order For Tif Funds To Happen, What Happens To The People Who Are Doing Those Projects? Jarod Stated The Idea Is The City Is Not Incurring Debt To Finance Projects For This Tif. The First Project Would Probably Be Financed By Tif. If You Were Wanting To Redo Your Property And It Was Going To Be A Big Investment By You, The City Could Help You Out With A Redevelopment Agreement That Reimburses You Based On The Future Property Taxes You Are Going To Pay Based On The Improvements.

The Mayor Stated A Question From Live On Facebook, All This Does Is Raises Taxes On People. Let's Stop Raising Taxes And Take Care Of The Tif Zones We Already Have. The Mayor Stated It Doesn't Raise Taxes Than It Normally Would Raise. Jarod Stated The Tif Does Deal With Property Taxes But It Is Not Increasing Full Tax Rate. It Doesn't Have Anything To Do With How Much You Are Paying In Property Tax. If You Were To Do A Project, And Not Get Any Tif Agreement, Your Taxes Are Still Going To Be Assessed The Same Way By The County You Would Still Have To Pay Those Same Property Taxes. You Would Just Not Get Any Of That Portion Back If You Don't Have An Agreement. Even Though It Is Funded By Property Taxes, It Doesn't Have Anything To Do With How Much Property Taxes You Pay.

4. The Mayor Adjourned The Meeting  

https://core-docs.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/4697/CWF/5816794/June_10__2025_TIF_PUBLIC_HEARING_MINUTES.pdf