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City manager briefs Brookville City Council on tax-increment financing
Summary
City Manager Jack Finch gave a detailed presentation explaining tax-increment financing (TIF), saying the tool uses new tax revenue from development to pay for public infrastructure, places financial risk on developers, and can be used to support senior housing and other projects in Brookville.
Jack Finch, Brookville city manager, gave City Council a step-by-step primer on tax-increment financing (TIF) during the meeting.
“TIFs are a funding mechanism that are found in the state of Ohio and it's used, for government agencies to invest in public infrastructure projects,” Finch said, describing how a TIF captures the increased tax revenue on a redeveloped parcel and directs that increment into infrastructure rather than reducing baseline tax receipts.
Finch told council members the core features of a typical TIF: the property taxes on a site’s predevelopment value continue to be distributed to schools, county government and other taxing districts unchanged; the “increment” — taxes produced by the higher post‑development value — is placed into a TIF fund and can be used to reimburse infrastructure costs that the developer incurs. He said the city’s policy assigns all financing risk to the developer and the city does not issue bonds or use its general fund to pay TIF obligations.
The city manager walked through common misconceptions and protections. “TIFs are not tax abatements,” Finch said. “There’s no loss of revenue for the agencies that were collecting taxes.” He said only costs explicitly listed in a developer agreement are eligible for reimbursement and that engineers and the law director review proposed costs before council approval.
Finch described typical term structures the city has used, saying the council has implemented 10-year, 75% TIFs in recent projects, and explained the local intent: Brookville’s planning outreach showed an aging housing stock and a shortage of senior housing, and TIFs can make infrastructure affordable for residential projects aimed at retirees and seniors as well as certain industrial investments.
On timeline, Finch said development projects seeking TIF support commonly take years to reach final approvals. “It's not uncommon for a development project from the very beginning to take 2 to 3 years,” he said, and he gave a recent local example that required roughly 2½ years of work before a formal TIF request reached staff and council.
Several council members asked follow-up questions about timing and specific eligible costs; Finch said staff and legal counsel will review any developer proposals in detail and bring developer agreements back to council for approval.
Finch closed by encouraging residents who missed the land-use open house to complete the online survey on the city website and by offering to provide additional detail to council on proposed projects as they arise.
