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Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Information:
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| St. Charles County continues to lose sales tax revenue because of tax increment financing granted to developers by St. Peters and St. Charles. The cities argue that helping developers improve or develop properties not only brings new retail and commercial development to the county, it also upgrades the overall assessed value of the property.
In other words, a field used for farming or an existing shopping area is valued much less than a new retail shopping center or a mixed-use area with light industrial and retail.
St. Charles County does not agree with using the law to move retail from one city to another and disagrees with the way municipalities have applied the definition of "blight". The County has also expressed concern about using TIF where there are no new jobs created or where residential will be located. Using TIF funds for residential areas especially makes no sense since the property tax growth that goes to the developer is the very property tax the schools need to pay for the new students. Under the provision of state law, tax increment financing districts, for up to 23 years, are entitled to 50 percent of the growth of sales tax revenues collected in the redevelopment area over the sales tax base that existed prior to the creation of the district, and to 100% of the growth in the property tax that would normally go to pay for schools, roads and bridges, the developmentally disabled, the library and the fire districts.
While St. Charles County continues to object to the loss of sales tax revenue because of tax increment financing granted to developers, the county has no recourse but to follow existing law. During 2007, St. Charles County paid $1,326,864 to the City of St. Peters and $394,473 to the City of St. Charles from county sales tax revenue funding tax increment financing districts. These mandatory payments from the county to the cities greatly cut into the economic well-being of St. Charles County, as 60.5 percent of its operating budget comes from sales taxes. And the sales tax payments are not the end of it, as the county must make TIF property tax payments to the cities as well. Since 2002, the county has paid $8.68 million from its sales tax revenues to fund TIF districts.
The totals in sales tax :
2002 _ $1.02 million
2003 _ $1.60 million
2004 _ $1.27 million
2005 _ $1.45 million
2006 _ $1.62 million
2007 _ $1.72 million
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