Reasons for delay among questions facing city's TIF commission

Cape Girardeau's Tax Increment Financing project is stuck because the developers still have not yet met.

The Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Commission met at the end of last month and asked the school board, the Prestwick Plantation developers and an independent consultant meet and come up with some compromises that everyone could accept.

At that August meeting, the TIF Commission scheduled a meeting for 7 p.m. today to discuss those dealings as well as some policy measures, including what types of things will be paid for with TIF money.

However, Mark Bowles, Cape schools superintendent, said he has not received any response from a letter he sent to the developers earlier this month. The parties have not met, much less come up with a compromise.

Cord Dombrowski, a developer of the proposed 900-acre subdivision, said he received the school district's letter and that it was about five or six pages long. He said he placed a phone call to the superintendent's office Wednesday morning to talk but the phone call was not returned.

The developers have said that they will give the school district $4 million to help offset the costs that might occur when people move to the subdivision and add students to the district. Since the TIF is almost exclusively residential, the increment taxes that will be used to fund the project will be property taxes. Since the school district's funds come from property taxes, the school district will be most effected. The school district has not yet officially accepted the developers' proposal. It has not yet been determined how the $4 million will be paid, whether it will be in a lump sum or over several years.

When asked where the parties should go from here, Dombrowski said, "I think back it goes back to the commission. We did what they asked us to do, and that was to try to engage in conversation."

As of Monday afternoon, Al Spradling III, the TIF commission chairman, hadn't heard any update on the situation.

"We scheduled it as a working session to see where we stood with the school district, the development and the commission," Spradling said. "Hopefully we'll have some reports, but at this point, I don't know what has been done. Maybe that will become more defined tomorrow."

Or maybe not.

"There are a number of issues we need more information on, plain and simple," Bowles said. "We mailed the letter in the beginning and have not heard back. They were working on getting that information, but until we get that back, we're not ready to take a stand either way on the TIF. We've got to insure that in a time of unsure funds and with teachers' salaries below average in the area and the state, that this does not adversely affect the school district in the long term."

Bowles said the school district wants more specific financial information like where the money will be coming from and where exactly it will be going. He said the letter also asked for information about the private investors and basic assurances that no tax will be going to the golf course. The developers have said on numerous occasions that no TIF money will go to the golf course.

TIF is the process of using the extra tax revenue generated by an area to pay for its own streets, sewers and other infrastructure elements.

The TIF Commission is deliberating whether to approve TIF financing for the city council's consideration. The Prestwick Plantation group wants to build a 900-acre subdivision around a just-completed, recently annexed golf course. The TIF proposal is for $30 million -- $24 million to go for infrastructure, $4 million to go to the school district and about $2 million to go to the city to improve Bloomfield Road and buy equipment.

bmiller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 127