Clarify TIF rules

For years, Vandalia's Tax Increment Financing program has helped fund projects in the community that otherwise probably wouldn't have gotten done.
And for the majority of those years, business owners have scratched their heads trying to determine the logic behind decisions about which projects were funded and how much they got.
When asked at last week's meeting of the Vandalia City Council, Mayor Rick Gottman said that the city has guidelines, "but we had gotten away from them." He said that he will be holding a meeting with the TIF committee to attempt to clarify those guidelines. Such an overhaul would bring some much-needed clarity to the program.
When the TIF program was launched, it was designed to reward projects that would generate jobs in the community. At times, the awards have been limited to 50 percent of the project cost. In other instances, a ceiling of $7,500 has been set on the awards. But some projects received much more.
"It's a kind of project-by-project thing," Gottman said.
There's probably a need for some discretion – to give the TIF committee some latitude as it responds to needs in the community – but what the program needs even more is a predictable structure, so that applicants know what the rules are before they invest the time and energy to apply for the grants.
To be fair to all applicants, such an overhaul is needed.
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