The start-up company F Cubed has a plan to grow and prosper in South Bend. Great news.
To that end, South Bend's Redevelopment earlier in November approved an allocation of $140,000 in tax increment funds
…
TIF is supposed to work like this: All tax dollars, including the portion that would normally go to schools, the county and other taxing units, generated from improvements in the district are plowed back to finance infrastructure to support additional development.
Lab equipment doesn't spring to mind as infrastructure. And for the immediate future, F Cubed will operate outside the Airport TIF District, which encompasses the airport and parts of the old Studebaker corridor.
This is a project expected to generate about a dozen good jobs immediately and 30 by 2015. Without question, that's a darn sight better use for funds than the downtown Jumbotron TIF bought.
Still, city officials have had a troubling propensity to turn TIF nearly into a slush fund, somehow justifying even its use for construction of the new animal shelter.
Bottom line, taxpayers and the taxing units giving up revenue to subsidize TIF deserve a clear definition of permitted uses for the program and how requests for the money are measured and assurance the Redevelopment Commission is sticking to the terms.
Meantime, let's all pull for the investment in F Cubed to succeed.
To that end, South Bend's Redevelopment earlier in November approved an allocation of $140,000 in tax increment funds
…
TIF is supposed to work like this: All tax dollars, including the portion that would normally go to schools, the county and other taxing units, generated from improvements in the district are plowed back to finance infrastructure to support additional development.
Lab equipment doesn't spring to mind as infrastructure. And for the immediate future, F Cubed will operate outside the Airport TIF District, which encompasses the airport and parts of the old Studebaker corridor.
This is a project expected to generate about a dozen good jobs immediately and 30 by 2015. Without question, that's a darn sight better use for funds than the downtown Jumbotron TIF bought.
Still, city officials have had a troubling propensity to turn TIF nearly into a slush fund, somehow justifying even its use for construction
Bottom line, taxpayers and the taxing units giving up revenue to subsidize TIF deserve a clear definition of permitted uses for the program and how requests for the money are measured and assurance the Redevelopment Commission
Meantime, let's all pull for the investment in F Cubed to succeed.
