Council receives TIF annual report

The Fremont City Council received the Tax Increment Financing Annual Report during Tuesday night’s meeting. 
 
Jody Sanders, director of finance for the city, provided details on the report and answered questions from the council.
 
 “I think kind of the headline from this report for you is that we had two (TIF projects) that rolled off and four new ones,” Sanders said. “When I do this report, I kind of do it at a point in time in April so that from year to year you see what we have moving through.” 
 
Sanders broke down the numbers of the report. 
 
“We started out with property that was valued at about $18.7 million and through the tax increment tool, we will now at the end of their respective 15-year process we’ll have added $173.4 million to our valuation,” she said. “That kind of gives you a snapshot of where we’re at and what tax increment financing has done for our community.”
 
Sanders referenced a report by the Nebraska Department of Revenue about the process.
 
“For the purpose of their report, they go on a calendar year,” she said. “They had Fremont down as having nine projects, but they measure it as a percent of our total valuation. Our percent of total valuation that has been designated as allocated for TIF has been 7.7 percent. That is pretty much in the ballpark of several of our sister cities.” 
 
Sioux City has a percentage of 8.75, the finance director said. However, that city only has four projects and the excess tax that they are not collecting right now, but will be added to their rolls after the 15 years, is $1.45 million.
 
“Now for the city, for just our nine projects, we had $3.3 million — that is in tax, not valuation,” Sanders said. “That is how much when all of these projects kind of roll through their 15-year process the city will receive about $3 million more in property tax each year. That is counting the entire city levy so the school districts will get a portion of that, the county gets a portion of that. All of the taxing authorities within our jurisdiction will share in that $3.29 million.” 
 
Councilman Brad Yerger made a motion to receive the report and it was seconded by Vern Gibson. The motion passed 8-0.
In other business, the council moved to confirm the appointment of Melanie Martinez as a police officer and also reviewed the cash reserve policy for consideration at the May 11 meeting.