Marion County's TIF Districts See Base Erode By Nearly Half a Billion Dollars In One Year

 If you want to continue to believe the outright lies told to you about TIF districts, stop here and do not read any further.

After eroding $43 million in 2010, and less than a million in 2011, the combined assessed value of the base of all of Marion County's TIF districts dropped precipitously in 2012.  The pay2012 assessed value of all taxable property in the base was $1.56 billion.  The pay2013 value is down to $1.07 billion - a staggering loss to the base of $490 million or about a third.

All this while the assessed value of taxable property throughout the County increased a modest 0.8%.

This matters because the base is the property value you were told would always cast its property taxes to your schools and libraries and fire departments, and even the city-county government.  If this doesn't debunk that old lie, nothing will.

Two more TIF districts saw their base AV drop to zero this year; making a total of 17 of 40 districts to have achieved that status.

The TIF districts comprising the consolidated downtown TIF saw a minor gain of $261,618 in base AV.  However, the airport TIF base dropped an incredible $108 million, for just over one third of its prior value.  Congratulations Wayne and Decatur Township taxpayers.  This is a significant number that will cause your tax rates and tax bills to increase, while your schools will find less money in their stockings due to more people hitting the tax caps.

Services don't pay for themselves - taxpayers do.  We all carry the weight of this fiasco.

$489,761,569 drop in TIF base AV

staggering

precipitous

incredible

stunning

astounding

amazing

 

but true

I uploaded a copy of the forms filed by the Auditor this year to determine the new base values for all TIFs in Marion County.  I also uploaded a summary spreadsheet showing the districts and base assessed values that I created from the Auditor's forms.