Renewing The Easley TIF

The school board has raised property taxes three times in a row in Sept 2016, June and Sept 2017. The county council is now considering two tax increases, one of 3.3 mills and another of 1.3 mills. Business sales and home building have been rising for years now, so sales tax and property tax revenue is pouring into school board and county council coffers are the highest rate they’ve been in 12 years. Both the board and council are spending this new money, plus more, so they are having to raise property tax rates to balance their books.

Upon reading the article about the new Easley TIF a couple of weeks ago, I asked why the heck is the school board and county council giving more money to the city of Easley for its TIF?

“TIF” is short for Tax Increment Financing. First, a city creates a TIF area. Second, within the limits of the TIF plan, county government, school district and city tax revenue generated from the appreciation of property in that area is diverted from those taxing districts (county, school district, city), and is invested in redevelopment projects in the TIF area.

You might remember, in about 2002, in separate agreements with the cities Clemson and Easley, TIFs were created, where the county council and school board agreed to give up some of their future revenue to help re-build city sidewalks, expand city buildings and create new parks in Clemson and Easley. For instance, the Clemson TIF the deal was to spend $10.4 million in eighteen redevelopment projects in downtown Clemson. Most was to be paid for by the school district revenue and most of the rest by the county government.

When I became the chairman of the school board in 2011, I looked closely at all the TIFs and uncovered the Clemson TIF was taking $21 million or nearly $11 million more than agreed on. For instance, examining the plan, $800,000 was supposed to be spent on expanding Clemson city hall. In the end, $2.8 million was spent on the project. Clemson spent $1.7 million on Keowee Trail Park and it was aiming to spend another $1.3 million on “miscellaneous bike path construction”.

Under the TIF law and TIF agreement, the money above the $10.4 million was to be returned to the school district and county government, instead the Clemson TIF was expanding approved projects and creating new ones to spend the extra money on. They would have took and spent $21 million if we didn’t look at it and discover what was going on.

Along with the county council, we took the Clemson city council to court where the judge ruled Clemson was violating the law and the TIF agreement. The judge awarded the board and council a multi-million dollar judgement and the Clemson TIF was shut down. Easley city was doing the same on a smaller scale, and they paid a settlement as well, and their TIF was shut down as well.

The Easley TIF was an agreement for $2.6 million. We uncovered they were taking $4.3 million. Like with Clemson, we called them out, and they were forced to repay some of that over-reach to the county government and the school district.

Fast forward to today, the city of Easley is planning to spend $1.5 million on six city projects. For instance, one project includes new landscaping for Market Square. Another includes upgraded signage for the downtown Farmers Market, and new trash receptacles and benches for main street. Yet another is to add shade the city’s Amphitheater.

Lo and behold, the new school board in a 6 to 0 vote and the new council in a 5 to 1 vote restarted the Easley TIF, and signed on for 10 more years. The only one to vote “No” was Trey Whitehurst the Six Mile rep on the county council. The county council agreed to and recently voted to pay for more than half of those projects. The school board voted to pay for most of the rest through a new TIF agreement.

Easley is the richest city in the county, with all the new businesses coming in and houses going up. Why did our school board spend vital education dollars on these city projects? What was our county council thinking when they gave Easley all this money with one hand, when they are considering raising our taxes with the other?

Like I have long said these this new council and board knows how to spend our money, but not manage it, and they do that in a variety of foolish ways.