The ice arena under construction at Amend Park in Billings is one project partially funded through Tax Increment Financing, also known as TIF.
“Amend Park is part of this,” said Billings Deputy Mayor Mike Boyett. “Have you seen all the new things down there? This is all TIF money.”
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Boyett is floating the idea of changing that and those who are paying attention are starting to ask questions.
According to state law, TIF leverages tax dollars collected by local governments for urban renewal and economic development.
“They have to present their proposals to City Council for approval,” said Pam Ellis, a Billings resident. “So there's some oversight. A lot of the work is done by the planning department.”
Boyett appreciates the projects made possible with the money and asked the City Council to consider changing how that money is handled.
Each of the three districts, Downtown Billings, East Billings, and South Billings, receives amounts ranging from $160,000 to $326,000 annually.
All three pay separate consultants.
“How much do they need?” Boyett asked. “Should it be a full-time position for each of the TIFs? Could it be a part-time? Could we combine them? To have more than one TIF run by one manager?”
“It's county money and school money that's getting diverted,” said Kevin Nelson, a Billings resident. “And the Legislature thought that those taxing jurisdictions should be part of that process.”
Nelson has studied many of the issues of local government.
“If they could just designate one person to oversee all three districts, maybe a support staff,” Nelson said.
At this point, Boyett is just asking the questions.
He doesn't have any firm ideas, and he's waiting for the council to talk about that at an upcoming meeting, but the public has checked in with emails to the City Council.
“That money may be going to more than one person, but to me that's an abuse of public resources,” said Ellis.
Ellis emailed the city council and says paying a TIF director a six-figure salary is way too much, but others say it's a big job.
The Downtown Billings Alliance's CEO Katy Schreiner says she is waiting for more information, but she did say: “The work involved in managing the Downtown Billings Urban Renewal District, the contracted work in question, goes far beyond facilitating the allocation of TIF.”
The City Council will continue this conversation at the April 6 meeting.
