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“On behalf of the Cincinnati Educational Justice Coalition we want to thank you again for your contribution to Cincinnati’s fight against the expansion of the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Districts in Cincinnati, Ohio. While we were not successful in convincing City Council to not approve 14 new TIF Districts in December 2019, your advice and support throughout our campaign was invaluable.
Your presentation to the Cincinnati community was incredibly helpful in helping us understand TIF’s, and your testimony before Cincinnati City Council as a subject matter expert was impactful. You went above and beyond to help us, including speaking to local press, and sharing your years of research and findings with us.
Please feel free to use this note of gratitude as a letter of reference for any future partners of yours, in your continued quest to expose his destructive policy.”
In Gratitude,
Michelle Dillingham – Coordinator for the Cincinnati Educational Justice Coalition – Dillingham.michelle@gmail.com
The city of Cincinatti has 44 TIFs. In late November of 2019 their Mayor, John Cranley, announced that he would be pushing to create 15 new TIFs by the end of December.
Local public education organizer Michelle Dillingham (who ran for Cincinnati City Council in 2017) connected with Tom Tresser in early December 2019 and brought him to Cincinnati to organize a response. She is the co-founder and organizer for the Cincinnati Educational Justice Coalition.
Tom and Michelle collaborated to craft a town meeting on TIFs that was held at the Cincinnati Board of Education’s HQ on Sunday night, December 8, 2019. Tom opened up a private work space for the project inside the CivicLab’s BaseCamp platform.
Michelle pulled together an amazing event – using social media, old school calling, social media, and community outreach. The co-sponsor was the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, Julie Sellers, President.
The idea was to expand the typical Illumination we have been doing since 2013 – explaining what TIFs are, how they work, how big a deal they are in the community, and then lift up the public policy harms TIFs present to the public.
To deliver the local flavor and explain how TIFs work in Ohio and the specifics of TIFs on Cincinnati, local urban policy and data mavin Mark Samaan jumped in and took our presentation template and filled it in with the specifics of the city. If you’ve been to one of our 76 public meetings you will recognize the format and the vibe of the presentation. Here it is:
In preparing for this forum we were astonished to learn:
We decided to create a robust but simple web site – cinedjustice.org – which Tom created in one evening.
Michelle and Tom collaborated on the framing and messaging for a campaign that would inform the town meeting and a rally at City Hall the next day. Michelle used change.org to fashion a petition demanding the Mayor and the City Council freeze and audit the existing TIFs before rushing to create 15 new TIFs.
85 people showed up for the TIF forum with very little notice on a Sunday night. Four members of the Board of Education attended as did staff people for three City Council members.
Tom delivered a concentrated version of his presentation on the public policy harms of TIFs with a special reference to Cincinnati. Here it is:
During the Q&A a question was asked – that is often asked in these forums – about what could be the best way to do economic development if TIFs are abolished. Here is a short video clip of that exchange.
It was an amazing night of civics! Great questions and high energy and engagement. Michelle and Julie announced that there would be a rally in front of City Hall the next day and that we would be testifying in front of a meeting of the City Council Finance Committee. Michelle was excited to use a phrase Tom suggested as the basis for a banner: “T.I.F.s = Taking It From Schools.”
Here is my testimony:
Here is the testimony of Julie Sellers, President of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers.
Here is the testimony of Michelle Dillingham, the main organizer for this effort:
Here is the stirring and powerful testimony of Jennifer Summers, the director of a neighborhood community center, the Peaslee Center. She explains the policy matters at hand from the point of view of her son who was asked to define “sharing.”
Astonishingly, some 20 people pulled comment cards and gave testimony. Many had been to the town meeting the night before and a few had not. We had no time to coordinate messaging yet all speakers hit the main themes from our forum – all in their own voices and lifting up unique and powerful points!
And then – most amazing of all – at the end of the public comment session – the Chairman of the committee, David Mann, announced he was not sure what all the fuss was about because he has a report with a link to the long sought after TIF account totals! This was astonishing as a councilmember’s chief of staff had attended the forum the night before and told the story of attempting to get an accounting of the TIFs for over 18 months and being stonewalled! We rushed out to the hall to see the document in question. It was dated that morning!
The amount of funds sitting in the 20 TIFs was $40 million – about 8% of the total city budget! This is only PART of the picture as this neglects the accounts of the 24 “TIF Projects.”
This was a number unknown to the teacher’s union, the data/policy pros, the media, and even the to the members of the City Council – that is, until a great group of organizers and educators came together! Thanks to some heads up organizing and great citizen turnout and participation, the City reacted and gave up information it had NEVER revealed before!
Here’s what Michelle sent out Monday night – after a long week of organizing and a long Monday of protest, testimony, more organizing, and celebrating…
Friends of Public Education:
What a whirlwind! Just days ago we heard by way of a tweet from a news reporter that the City Administration proposed Cincinnati City Council, by Dec. 18, pass Ordinances to approve 15 new TIF Districts that would last for the next 30 years.
We knew TIF Districts diverted property taxes meant for public services into a shadow budget with little accountability and no transparency. So, you can imagine this was concerning!
So, we sprang into action, worked hard to educate ourselves and the community – including hosting a city-wide convening that drew over 80 people on Sunday evening (you can watch the entire presentation at this link: https://www.facebook.com/TogetherWeWillSWOhio/videos/552876215551379/). And, you can access all the presentations at this link: cinedjustice.org.
We held a press conference on the steps of City Hall, then went into the Budget Committee and pulled public speaker cards.
Be inspired (!!!) by the long line of people who spent their whole afternoon at City Hall to urge Council to Freeze the TIF programs until a full audit is provided to the public! They are first on the agenda. You can watch all the testimonies from today at this link: https://archive.org/details/11191209bfc).
By this morning, for the first time that we know of, the City Administration included SOME information on the existing TIF District programs. While it is in no way a full accounting, it is a start…. And it is surely is because of ALL of our collective pressure, whether from your emails and calls to Council, to signing our petition (tinyurl.com/Freeze-The-TIFs), to sharing your concerns on social media, to showing up at the City-Wide convening….
WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE!
In 2018 alone, Cincinnati TIF’s stole $30 million dollars (7% of the total City budget) in property taxes, and there is no public accounting of this whole program. We said it is critical that the people of Cincinnati demand to know the following: What is the total amount of money that TIF’s have taken since the program was created, what projects have been funded by TIF’s, what consultants or auditors have been paid through the TIF program?, and most importantly, how much money is sitting in the TIF accounts right now.
What we know from this small amount of information shared TODAY on the current TIF District funds: According to the“TIF FUND BALANCE and CAPACITY Summary” dated Dec 9, 2019 (yes, today…..). the TIF District balance (and again, this does NOT INCLUDE TIF Projects) shows a balance of just shy of $40 MILLION dollars. Again, this is TAXPAYER money that we paid through our property taxes that we THOUGHT was going to our schools and other public services but is sitting in a slush fund at City Hall. This is only a part of the story and we must continue to demand a full independent audit before any more votes on TIFS!!!
Please join us at our next standing monthly meeting this Thursday, Dec. 12th at 6:00pm. This month we are meeting at the Avondale Public Library at 3566 Reading Rd, Cincinnati, OH 45229. We will plan our next steps at this meeting.
Thanks to our brothers and sisters of the Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Council for passing a Resolution regarding Cincinnati’s New TIF Districts Proposal:
“The CLC’s is encouraging the Cincinnati City Council to delay the vote of any new TIF Districts until:
(1) A full study/report is prepared, detailing the financial impact that the Cincinnati TIF districts are having upon the Cincinnati Public School District and its’ students;
(2) Public hearings are held by City Council, including a citizens’ question-answer/comments period with full disclosure and an opportunity for citizens and students to be heard from regarding the tax abatement and TIF district issues; and
(3) A new tax abatement/TIF agreement is agreed to/executed by the City of Cincinnati and the Cincinnati Public Schools, which fairly compensates the CPS and its students for the past, present and future loss of property tax revenue due to tax abatements/TIF districts/projects approved by the City.”
Opinion: City’s TIF expansion is a bait and switch for voters
Julie Sellers, Opinion contributor – Dec. 15, 2019 https://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/2019/12/13/opinion-citys-tif-expansion-bait-and-switch-voters/4396426002
Just last month more than 70% of Cincinnati voters – including thousands of tax paying property owners – showed their confidence in Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) by voting to extend a real estate tax levy that will keep our city’s public schools open and thriving. At the same time, voters also renewed levies for Family Services and Developmental Disabilities. Our county parks, libraries and service providers to seniors, children, and needy hospital patients all rely on voter approved tax levies.
When citizens vote to tax themselves to support our schools and other public services, they have the right to expect that the money generated actually will be used for the purpose described on the ballot.
But what city voters did not know on this recent election day was that Cincinnati bureaucrats and politicians were hatching a scheme to divert real estate taxes away from their intended purpose, and into slush funds controlled by City Hall, primarily to subsidize developers.
How? Through the creation of 15 new TIF (tax increment financing) districts being rushed for approval by City Council.
Here’s how the TIF scam works: when a developer builds a new project, the value of the developed property goes up. Without a TIF (or the tax abatements that often go hand in hand with TIF) the increased value would result in higher real estate tax collections to support schools and other public services. Those increased collections ease the burden on the rest of us paying our real estate taxes at undiscounted (i.e. not abated) rates.
But when tax increment financing is used, the taxes that should have gone to our schools or other public purposes are sent instead to an account controlled by City Hall. Sometimes the money is used to subsidize the developer (who likely donated to various city campaign accounts) by paying costs typically part of the price of the development. Or maybe the tax funds are diverted to help build another new pro sports stadium. Where it does not go is for the purpose’s taxpayers were told when they voted to impose or renew levies. It’s a classic bait and switch, with voters taking the bait.
TIFs are not new. There are already more than 40 TIF projects or districts in the city covering more than $3 BILLION in property values. While some TIF properties generate a “payment in lieu of taxes” (PILOT) to CPS, the net loss to the district in just one year now totals more than $5 million. Other public service programs funded by real estate levies get no PILOT payments, and now lose more than $16 million annually as a result of TIFs.
But that could be just the tip of the TIF iceberg. The proposed expansion of TIFs to cover 15 new districts will exponentially expand the value of property that will not be subject to the taxes that voters have approved and which most of us must pay.
This latest TIF scam comes on top of the explosion of tax abatements that so many owners of new commercial buildings, million-dollar (or more) condos or McMansions use to dodge the taxes that the owners of older homes in neighborhoods like Price Hill, College Hill or Kennedy Heights still must pay. Even after considering the PILOT payments that come to CPS from some abated properties, CPS would collect more than $27 million in real estate taxes of abatements were eliminated. Owners of pricey new abated single-family homes get outrageous tax discounts that push the tax burden onto the owners of older homes. For example, the owner of a new $1.2 million Mount Adams town house with river views now pays about the same real estate tax as the owner of a $146,000 home in Evanston.
The expansion of the TIF program proposed by the city will shift even more of the burden of paying for public services to those of us without these jaw-dropping TIF tax shelters and abatements. If you believe the proceeds of tax levies you supported should actually go to the purpose described on the ballot, contact your City Council members and let them know.
It’s time to end the TIF scam and rein in a tax abatement program that is so unfair to Cincinnati’s voters and taxpayers.
Julie Sellers is president of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers.
From the Cincinnati Enquirer: “Council voted 7-1 to create the new districts, with Councilwoman Tamaya Dennard voting no on all but the one in the West End. She said she spoke to community leaders in that neighborhood and was comfortable the money would be well spent.
TIFs also will be created in parts of these neighborhoods: Camp Washington, College Hill, the eastern riverfront, Mount Airy, Mount Auburn, North Fairmount, Northside, Pleasant Ridge, Riverside, Roselawn, South Cumminsville, South Fairmount, Spring Grove Village and Westwood.”
Organizer Michelle Dillingham immediately filed a formal complaint with the Ohio Auditor’s Office. “The taxpayers deserve a full accounting of where all these millions of dollars are or have gone, and it’s unacceptable for the Administration to be hiding these funds in what amounts to a shadow budget,” she said.
