Sedalia Doesn’t Need a 353 Redevelopment Plan
There is a lot happening in Sedalia right now. Many local residents are starting to ask questions about the goings-on...
WATCH: Developer Seeking $60 Million TIF in Osage Beach, Missouri
The Osage Beach TIF Commission will meet on April 17, 2023 regarding the Oasis at Lakeport project. More information here....
St. Louis Should Eliminate Its Economic Development Agencies
A version of this commentary appeared in the St. Louis Business Journal. In July 2010, Missouri politicians joined the state’s...
What’s the Rush, Chesterfield?
Chesterfield leaders have scheduled a special city council meeting for Wednesday, December 14, to vote on (and likely approve) the...
Chesterfield and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Large TIF
Chesterfield does not have a municipal property tax. There’s nothing wrong with that. It funds its local government primarily with...
Ballwin TIF Ends; Clear Failure Lauded as “Great Success” by Municipal Apparatchiks
In the great film “The Death of Stalin,” there are many fantastic scenes of a dark-comic nature where the members...
Movement on TIF Bill
There’s potential for tax-increment financing (TIF) reform this legislative session. My colleague David Stokes and I recently submitted testimony for...
Brody Corners Decision Good for Springfield
Springfield has temporarily abandoned an incentive package plan for the Brody Corners multi-use project. The plan would have resulted in...
An Updated Look at Tax-Increment Financing
Tax-increment financing (TIF) is a widely used economic development incentive in which property tax revenues are redistributed back to developers....
A Policy Scare Story: TIF
Ghosts and chainsaws can be scary, but is there anything scarier than the misuse of tax dollars? Okay, maybe that’s...
Lee’s Summit Is Generous to a Fault
A bad idea doesn’t get better with age. Bad ideas aren’t wine, jeans, or your high school memories. The tax...
Residential TIF Versus School Districts
The St. Louis TIF Commission approved a second phase of the City Foundry TIF project by a vote of 5...
Missouri Has A Productive Legislative Session, With More to Come
As the clock ticked down in the last week of Missouri’s regular legislative session, there was growing concern about what...
Tides Turning Against TIF?
Public support is growing for efforts to protect local funding from bad tax-increment financing (TIF) deals, but will the elected...
TIF and the Pandemic, Part 1
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported recently on the struggles of county health departments in Missouri during the Covid pandemic. We...
A Big Win for Taxpayers in Maryland Heights
As far as I know, the biggest defeat of a tax increment financing (TIF) package or similar tax subsidy (and,...
Will Boonville Repeat the Mistakes of St. Louis and Kansas City?
A version of this commentary was published in the Columbia Tribune. Tax-increment financing (TIF) is Missouri’s bad idea that refuses...
New TIF is a Bad Deal for Boonville
A new tax-increment financing (TIF) package is being proposed to subsidize a new, 400-home development in Boonville. As best we...
What Would Daniel Boone (or His Sons) Think of TIF?
A new tax-increment financing (TIF) package is being proposed to subsidize a new, 400-home development in Boonville. As best we...
Five New Year’s Resolutions for Missouri Lawmakers
A version of this commentary appeared in the Columbia Tribune. Missouri is considered one of the most “conservative” of the 50...
