Downtown Neighborhood Association readies for future
By Ted Schnell • BocaJump | Nov. 15, 2011
The Center City’s tax increment financing district is being used to fund millions of dollars of infrastructure improvements in the downtown area, but the legislation authorizing such districts also allows use of those revenues to fund downtown organizations.
The Downtown Neighborhood Association has proposed it be funded through the TIF instead of the business license, whose revenues city officials initially had hoped to use pay the DNA and the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce to fund economic development efforts after budget cuts several years ago wiped out the city staff who had held that task.
But the revenues hoped for from the business license generated just $268,000 this year, much less than what city officials had hoped it would raise when the license was established in late 2009 and implemented in 2010. The revenues fell far short of providing the chamber $400,000 and the DNA $135,000 a year.
City Manager Sean Stegall said Monday then DNA intends to use $130,000 a year in TIF money to fund its program through 2015, with an eye toward establishing a special assessment area to provide ongoing funding for the organization beginning in 2016.
“They’ll tax themselves — it’ll kind of be the successor to the TIF,” Stegall said, adding that under a special service area designation, the DNA will function more as a quasigovernmental agency, even potentially overseeing its own façade renovation program. “I think that’s a wise move on their part.”
That move will help the city adjust, but Stegall said the chamber has no such option open to it. The city is planning the cut its contribution to the chamber from the $400,000 a year it received in 2010 and 2011 to $275,000 in 2012, and to just $100,000 a year from 2013 through 2016. In addition, Stegall said, the proposed 2012 budget places the chamber funding in the riverboat fund.
That effectively disconnects each organization, he said, from the business license issue. Stegall said those revenues will remain in the general fund, as they have from the start. But now the monies will be used to fund the city’s own in-house economic development initiatives.
The proposed 2012 budget, Stegall said, includes business license revenue, although the council has indicated it will review the license in January.
Public invited to Saturday, Nov. 19, session: The council and city administration will hold an “interactive public hearing” on the proposed budget from 9 a.m. to noon in the Heritage Ballroom in The Centre of Elgin. City leaders say the intent of the meeting is not to field criticisms or complaints, but to respond to questions residents may have about various aspects of the budget. If there are questions the council or city staff cannot answer at the meeting, Mayor David Kaptain said earlier it may take a day or two to research the issue and get the resident an answer.
