Joint Review Board gives blessing for Colfax to fund Cedar Street with TIF money
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.
by LeAnn R. Ralph
COLFAX — The Joint Review Board for Colfax’s Tax Increment Financing District 3 has no objections to TIF funds being used for the Cedar Street project.
A Joint Review Board meeting for Tax Increment Financing District 3 was held March 21 as a courtesy to the taxing authorities, although the school district was not represented, said Gary Stene, village trustee, at the Colfax Village Board’s March 27 meeting.
The meeting was to obtain approval to spend TIF District 3 funds on Cedar Street, he said.
Taxing authorities on the Joint Review Board include representatives for Dunn County, Chippewa Valley Technical College, the Colfax school district and the village.
The JRB members know the village’s streets are in desperate need of repair, and they appreciated being filled in on Colfax’s plans, said Jody Albricht, village president.
In a TIF District, the property taxes on improvements in the district go into a special fund and then are used to pay for infrastructure that benefits the TIF district, such as sewer and water mains and streets.
When the TIF district is closed out, the taxing authorities receive the remaining money divided by the percentages in which they receive property taxes, although school districts essentially receive no benefit from a TIF district pay-out because the state of Wisconsin reduces the amount of state aid received by the district by the amount of the TIF district pay-out.
The taxing authorities still receive the property taxes on the base value in the TIF district.
The life of a TIF district is either 20 or 26 years.
There was a lot of Dunn County representation at the JRB meeting. TIF District 3 is in good shape, and that’s not always the case in all villages, said Stene, who serves as a supervisor on the county board and also serves on the Dunn County Economic Development Corporation Board.
TIF Districts were created to benefit municipalities, said Lynn Niggemann, Colfax administrator-clerk-treasurer.
Cedar Street will be TIF funded, so now there is still the $121,000 in American Rescue Plan Acts Funds (ARPA) that the village board had decided to use on the underground portions of a street project, she said.
The ARPA funds can be used for a different street because Cedar Street will be TIF funded, Niggemann said.
The ARPA money has to be allocated by September of 2024 and must be spent by 2026, she said.
The Colfax Village Board unanimously approved the Joint Review Board report and minutes from the meeting.
TIF 3
According to information provided to the Joint Review Board by Josh Lowe of Ehlers, the village’s financial advisor, the project fund balance for TIF District 3 was $212,558 at the end of 2022.
The fund balance is expected to grow through the end of the TIF district’s life in 2030, with a projected cumulative balance of $755,889.
The TIF district’s project plan includes street projects within a half mile of the district.
The estimated project cost used for the calculations from Ehlers was $410,000, although at the March 27 meeting, the Colfax Village Board awarded the low bid for the Cedar Street project to Skid Steer Guy LLC for $348,815, representing a decrease of a little over $61,000 over the estimated project cost.
The village will be able to use TIF District 3 funds to make payments on a general obligation note issued for the Cedar Street project.
The loan can be structured so the village pays principal and interest on the loan for six years with TIF District 3 funds, with a balloon payment at the end.
On a loan of $410,000, the principal and interest payments would be $18,765 per year, and the final payment would be $435,765.
The principal and interest payments would allow Colfax to maximize the TIF District 3 funds to pay for other projects as well.
Since the TIF District 3 funds will be paying for the Cedar Street project, debt service for the loan will not go on the property tax levy for village taxpayers.
