The Village of South Jacksonville Board of Trustees heard the annual report on the village’s TIF District on March 6.
Nic Nelson, of Jacob & Klein Ltd. Of Bloomington, provided the trustees with a rundown of the performance of the village’s TIF District the previous two years.
The South Jacksonville TIF was created in 2001 with the first projects in the district starting in 2003. As a result, the district has attracted the village’s 4 hotels, Love’s Truck Stop, and Bartlett Grain Company over that time. In August 2016, Governor JB Pritzker extended the village’s TIF District’s life by signing a bill for a 12-year extension. The district is set to expire in 2036 with property taxes on all of the new construction expected for collection in 2037.
Nelson broke down where $8.7 million in the TIF District has gone over the life of the district. He offered this breakdown of the FY23 TIF revenues and expenditures: “In Fiscal Year 23, there was a beginning balance in the TIF account of $309,086. Revenues deposited into the fund during this year were $788,406. Most of that was real estate tax increment generated by the TIF District and there is a few hundred dollars in interest income from the bank account that that money was in. The top group of public costs – these are the projects that the village has undertaken – this is your typical infrastructure-type work projects – these in the middle are the private projects where the village has entered into a redevelopment agreement developer. Then, there was some administrative costs and then no capital costs have been paid. That is kind of where the money has gone in going back to the very beginning.”
There was little change in FY24. Nelson says that the current fiscal year is likely to bring in $849,000 and there are no new TIF Redevelopment agreements with private developers expected.
Members of Jacksonville School District 117’s administration were in the audience for the presentation, including Superintendent Steve Ptacek and District Treasurer Richard Cunningham. District officials were likely on a fact-finding mission on the potential tax revenues that the properties in the TIF might bring once the district expires.
Ptacek has told the District 117 Board that the properties coming onto the tax rolls in 2036 will likely provide a cushion and potential property tax relief to the district.
Ptacek had this brief exchange with Nelson on questions:
Ptacek: “Quick questions: When I see the EAV totals, is that actually 1/3 more than your net-taxable valuation? It’s only 146.”
Nelson: “Yeah, so I believe that’s the total EAV of where we are at now, and then you subtract out the base EAV, which is the EAV on the day that the TIF was put in and then, that gets you to the incremental EAV that the tax rates are multiplied by to get the increment generated on that bottom line.
Ptacek: “And what tax rate are you using?”
Nelson: “That’s going to be whatever the tax rate is in the given year is. So…”
Ptacek: “Is that the tax rate that everybody else…?”
Nelson: “Well, it’ll be…like if your tax rate in this current tax year is 8.5%, you will multiple that rate times the incremental EAV to get the total.”
Ptacek: “That’s all I wanted.”
With the district facing potential cuts from both state and federal funding, the additional property tax revenue would help the district rebuild its fund balances and pay down debt service on current bonds within the next decade. Local taxpayers may even see a shift in their individual tax burden as the village’s equalized assessed value would then see its full potential.