COUNTY NAMES SIX TO TIF PANEL; NEW COMMISSION TO ESTABLISH PLAN

JACKSON -- The Cape Girardeau County Commission voted Thursday to establish a Tax Increment Financing Commission and appointed six of the nine mandated members.

The TIF Commission will meet for the first time next week.

Only two reporters attended a public hearing on the proposed TIF district Thursday morning.

The six members of the TIF Commission are the county commissioners -- Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones and Associate Commissioners Larry Bock and Joe Gambill -- plus Al Spradling III and Paul Sander, the mayors of Cape Girardeau and Jackson, respectively; and John Richbourg, Cape Girardeau's finance director.

The three remaining seats will be filled by representatives from the Cape Girardeau and Jackson school districts and one member representing all of the other taxing entities affected by the district.

Mitch Robinson, executive director of the Cape Girardeau Area Industrial Recruitment Association, said representatives from the Mental Health Board, the county health department, senior citizens services, Riverside Regional Library, the Cape Girardeau Special Road District, Sheltered Workshop and Little River Drainage District will meet Tuesday morning to choose their TIF district representative.

The school districts have not yet named their representatives.

The full TIF Commission will meet Thursday at 1:30 p.m. to begin work.

Jones said the TIF Commission would administer the special district.

"This commission will proceed with defining the area to be serviced and financing, " he said.

The County Commission will have the final authority to approve or reject any proposals made by the TIF Commission.

The exact boundaries of the district have not been defined, but as proposed the district would follow Interstate 55 from the Nash Road interchange to the Cape West Business Park to the I-55-Highway 61 interchange between Cape Girardeau and Jackson.

The TIF district is being proposed as a way to finance infrastructure improvements to attract businesses and industries.

One proposal calls for extending a water main to the Nash Road area south of the Cape Girardeau city limits to help attract industry there.

The infrastructure improvements would be financed through bonds, which would be paid off with sales-tax revenue.

One of the things the TIF Commission will decide is how those bonds would be financed. The original plans called for capturing only sales-tax revenue generated within the TIF district.

Then organizers said they had been advised that they might also have to capture property tax revenue, which would pass through the district and be disbursed as usual to the school districts and other entities.

Robinson told commissioners Thursday that another legal firm had told them the sales tax would be sufficient for securing the bonds.

"You get two attorneys together, you're going to get two opinions," Robinson said.

County commissioners agreed that it would be up to the TIF Commission to choose the financing option and legal firm for the project.

Whatever tax revenue is used, 1995 would be used as a baseline. Any revenues produced in excess of that level would be split 50-50 between the TIF district and the taxing entities.

When new businesses and industries locate within the district, all of the tax revenue produced would be split between the TIF district and the taxing entities, Jones said.

TIF districts can be set up for up to 23 years, he said, "but we anticipate it being paid off in 10 or 12 years."