Agenda - Council Work Session - 02/27/2018

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Housing & Economic Development provide a living wage and benefits, and help address racial disparity gaps in employment; • Innovative workforce programs and partnerships that foster workforce readiness; • A payroll tax credit for job training programs that invest in employees; and • A city's authority to tie workforce requirements to local public finance assistance. 3-L Tax Increment Financing Tax Increment Financing (TIF) continues to be the primary tool available for local communities to assist economic development, redevelopment and housing. Over time, statutory changes have made this critical tool increasingly difficult to use. At the same time, federal and state development and redevelopment resources have been steadily shrinking. The cumulative impact of TIF restrictions, shrinking federal and state redevelopment resources and highly restrictive eminent domain laws constrain cities' abilities to address problem properties, which leads to an accelerated level of decline of developed cities in the metropolitan area. Thus, the only source of revenue available to accomplish the scope of redevelopment necessary is the value created by the redevelopment itself, or the "increment." Without the use of the increment, development will either not occur or is unlikely to be optimal. Metro Cities urges the Legislature to: • Not adopt any statutory language that would further constrain or directly or indirectly reduce the effectiveness of TIF; • Not adopt any statutory language that would allow a county, school district or special taxing district to opt out of a TIF district; • Incorporate the Soils Correction District criteria into the RedevelopmentDistrict criteria so that a Redevelopment District can be comprised of blighted and contaminated parcels in addition to railroad property; • Expand the flexibility of TIF to support a broader range of redevelopment projects; • Amend MN Statutes to clarify that tax increment pooling limitations are calculated on a cumulative basis; • Increase the ability to pool increments from other districts to support projects; • Continue to monitor the impacts of tax reform on TIF districts and if warranted provide cities with additional authority to pay for possible TIF shortfalls; • Allow for the creation of transit zones and transit related TIF districts in order to shape development and related improvements around transit stations but not require the use of TIF districts to fund the construction or maintenance of the public transit line itself 2018 Legislative Policies 30