opennebraska/tif

Nebraska TIF Report (Tax Increment Financing)

Tax Increment Financing

• Nebraska TIF Report
• Open/Nebraska

Tax Increment Financing (TIF) is one of those dry, abstract governmental issues that has powerful effects on how we live. TIF was originally conceived to promote economic development in marginalized areas, recently, it has been used primarily to build higher income apartments and condos. Thus, the issues with using TIF policy include gentrification, relocating (rather than reducing) poverty, using public funds for private gain and governmental accountability and transparency, among others. That's why it's important to have information easily available for citizens to review and reach informed opinions.

Long run, aim would be to provide information on connections. Maybe to put together a power structure database or force graph. Potential bits of information includes:

• Which city council members voted on these projects
• Who has donated to their campaigns
• Other connections those city council members have to construction firms, developers, etc..

Links

• Nebraska Dept of Revenue TIF Annual Reports
• Omaha City Council - Better Agendas source code

tif's Issues

Our JS, CSS libraries are crazy out of date?

If some JS / CSS guru could patch these, that would be great:

jQuery first, then Bootstrap:
https://github.com/codefornebraska/tif/blob/main/static-www/templates/layout.tt2#L73-L74

Bootstrap CSS:
https://github.com/codefornebraska/tif/blob/main/static-www/templates/layout.tt2#L17

TIF ID 28-2248 data questions

@elviejito wrote:
Jay, I just happened to stumble upon this weird situation:
In the TIF graphical database for City of Omaha, Fores Hills Properties, LLC (The Dunsany) (http://opennebraska.github.io/pri-tif/DOUGLAS/OMAHA/28-2248.html), the year 2009 shows $92,674.27 in Total Tif Base Taxes paid. The following years the graphic shows a little over $9,000 paid each year.
I looked in the PAD spreadsheets for the years 2009 through 2012 and I see that figure of $92,674.27 continuing for each of those years. In 2013, the Total TIF Excess Value jumps from zero to $4,082,600, Total TIF Excess Taxes goes to $89,806.59 and Total TIF Base Taxes drop to $9,551.27.
I'm not quibbling with the numbers on the spreadsheet but I do note that they are not reflected in the graphic for Fores Hills Properties, LLC (The Dunsany).
Just an FYI.

2021 Excel file has no 2021 data in it? (bad source data)

I emailed our contact again:

Hi Cathy,

I seem to have hit a bigger problem with your 2021 TIF Excel file. It has no 2021 data in it?

https://revenue.nebraska.gov/PAD/research-statistical-reports/tax-increment-financing-annual-reports-legislature

✗ cat TIF_REPORT_2021.csv | ./csvcut.pl --c 13 | sort | uniq -c
“Count of Rows”,"Tax Year"
1 2003
3 2004
18 2005
50 2006
108 2007
154 2008
185 2009
222 2010
258 2011
331 2012
407 2013
489 2014
576 2015
660 2016
775 2017
881 2018
984 2019
1110 2020

Coding/display problem

In the Omaha City TIF report 2015, the first item says "$4,003,179.66 No Number Assigned As Of This Report Period." but looking up the TIF ID on the Dept. of Revenue 2015 PAD report comes back with "Name of Project: East Campus Realty, LLC
Midtown Crossing at Turner Park
Description: 23.30-acre Midtown Crossing mixed use development"
There are other display problems as well, but they may be resolved by dealing with this one.

Add 2021 data

2021 data now available: https://revenue.nebraska.gov/PAD/research-statistical-reports/tax-increment-financing-annual-reports-legislature

Make the 'About' link more obvious

@elviejito requested we change the 'About' link color to 250,245,117, 1.

I like it, looks good. :) Also change the mouse-over color to a gold? (Currently grey.)

We'll be overriding Twitter Bootstrap defaults:

Load 2015 PAD data

The 2015 data is available. Woot! Add it.

Dundy county broken (bad source data)

I emailed our contact at the Nebraska PAD who has been very responsive over the years:

Hi Cathy,

In your 2021 TIF Excel file

https://revenue.nebraska.gov/PAD/research-statistical-reports/tax-increment-financing-annual-reports-legislature

All your other counties seem fine, but Dundy county seems to have problems:

✗ cat TIF_REPORT_2021.csv | ./csvcut.pl --c 1 --c 2 --c 13 | grep DUNDY
"TIF ID#",CNTYNAME,"Tax Year"
29-8750,DUNDY,2011
29-8750,DUNDY,2011
29-8750,DUNDY,2011
29-8750,DUNDY,2011
29-8750,DUNDY,2011
29-8750,DUNDY,2011
29-8750,DUNDY,2011
29-8750,DUNDY,2011
29-8750,DUNDY,2011
29-8750,DUNDY,2020
29-8751,DUNDY,2018
29-8751,DUNDY,2020
29-8751,DUNDY,2108
29-8752,DUNDY,2020

TIF 29-8751 is reporting for Tax Year 2108. Which I assume is a typo. And 29-8750 is reporting the same Tax Year (2011) over and over again.

I’m going to skip processing Dundy county for 2021 for now.

————

It appears that when I downloaded your 2020 file the other Dundy county TIFs were OK, but 29-8750 was broken (and I didn’t notice):

✗ cat TIF_REPORT_2020.csv | ./csvcut.pl --c 1 --c 2 --c 13 | grep DUNDY
29-8751,DUNDY,2018
29-8751,DUNDY,2019
29-8751,DUNDY,2020
29-8752,DUNDY,2020
29-8750,DUNDY,2011
29-8750,DUNDY,2011
29-8750,DUNDY,2011
29-8750,DUNDY,2011
29-8750,DUNDY,2011
29-8750,DUNDY,2011
29-8750,DUNDY,2011
29-8750,DUNDY,2011
29-8750,DUNDY,2011
29-8750,DUNDY,2020

You may have fixed the 2020 file since then. I don’t know what date I downloaded your 2020 Excel file.

Prettier vertical axis? "$150M" vs. "$150,000,000.00"

This vertical axis looks pretty silly

Anyone know how to make this less silly via google.com/jsapi? Or use some other charter?
https://github.com/codefornebraska/tif/blob/main/static-www/templates/chart.tt2#L2-L6

Host via SSL (https://)

@elviejito is getting browser warnings about our current http:// hosting. Generate and install an SSL certificate on the current server (linode.com), or move the content (static web site) to Github Pages or some other hosting thing that does SSL.

Free SSL certs?

• https://letsencrypt.org/docs/
• https://www.netlify.com/

Don't break our virtual hosts:

• tif.report landing page for TIF around the world
• ne.tif.report (static web site)
• nebraska.tif.report (alias to ne)

Add 2017 data

From http://www.revenue.nebraska.gov/PAD/research/tif_reports.html .xls

Rename repo/project MORE-TIF?

@elviejito now that PRI no longer exists / has been rebranded MORE, what should this repo be called? tif? more-tif? Something else? I'd like to update all the links and the repo name.

Jack has the 2008-2010 Journal PDFs somewhere?

They're not on the Omaha City Council website anymore. Add them to the repo, textify them, add them to the results gist.

Add 2020 data

Looks like the Department of Revenue hasn't published the 2020 data yet. When they do we want to add it to the site.

Google Charts love needed

Hover over the graphs and you'll see ugly stuff like "2015 Taxes Refunded: 66271224.4599999". I poked around in the docs but couldn't figure out how to fix it.

SSL cert expires every 3 months... sigh

Follow-up after #39

certbot certonly -d '*.tif.report' --manual --preferred-challenges dns
change DNS challenge per prompt
systemctl restart apache2.service

Worked again, but now we're going to expire again 2023-05-08.

Successfully received certificate.
Certificate is saved at: /etc/letsencrypt/live/tif.report-0001/fullchain.pem
Key is saved at:         /etc/letsencrypt/live/tif.report-0001/privkey.pem
This certificate expires on 2023-05-08.
These files will be updated when the certificate renews.

NEXT STEPS:
- This certificate will not be renewed automatically. Autorenewal of --manual certificates requires the use
of an authentication hook script (--manual-auth-hook) but one was not provided. To renew this certificate,
repeat this same certbot command before the certificate's expiry date.

Report data needs more descriptive labels

When looking at the report, it's not clear to viewers what "Taxes Paid" and "Taxes Refunded" actually means. I would recommend renaming the data types or including a short description above the graph.

• Taxes paid description: Actual taxes paid by private development projects
• Taxes refunded description: Tax money refunded to the private development projects (or a more correct description)

Our Facebook metadata is ugly, needs a pretty picture etc.

If someone wants to optimize it, that'd be great: https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/?q=http%3A%2F%2Fnebraska.tif.report

Links to PRI 2011 and 2012 TIF reports are 404

Hey @elviejito I noticed that the links to PRI's 2011 and 2012 reports are now broken:

http://nebraska.tif.report/about.html

Are there new URLs for those reports? Or should I remove those links? Or if you have copies of those files somewhere and need a new host Code For Nebraska could host them on our servers?

2016 .xls has truncated descriptions

Hey @elviejito, one of the down sides to loading the 2016 data is that on pages like 1st National Office Tower the Description truncated from

TIF funds used for public improvements, site preparation and demolition for office tower. Original project amended several times for start year changed to 2001 anticipate pay off 2016.

Down to

TIF funds used for public improvements, site preparation and demolition for office tower. Original project am

It appears this is because the 2016 .xls file had truncated Descriptions. Would you mind contacting their office and asking about that? Thanks! :)

Load 2016 data

Looks like 2016 isn't available yet: http://www.revenue.nebraska.gov/PAD/research/tif_reports.html

But I'm chomping at the bit to load it whenever it is!

Add discussion forums?

@elviejito wrote:

At some point I would like to have a comment link available for anyone who subscribes on the PRI website to use (I am willing to moderate). This part may have to wait until PRI gets its website upgraded - hopefully in the next few weeks - unless there's a way to add comments onto the GitHub TIF db html. I like the idea of setting up a free exchange of ideas about policy, politics, economics, land use, etc.

My big concern is the time-consuming nature of moderation. I've had wikis overrun with 5GB of spam. It's a headache. It's brave of you to volunteer to spend all the time that may be required. Would Open/Nebraska be liable for libel if idiots post inflammatory idiocy?

Might be best to just have this website be the data, we could link to whatever discussion forum(s) you want on the PRI site?

Modify db/load_db.pl to persist conflicted historical data

Currently db/load_db.pl audits every row of input data. If historical data changes over time the program complains bitterly and ignores the new data. (There are 137 occurrences of this in the log.)

Jack Dunn emailed with Elaine Thompson of the PAD, and there are some known, valid reasons this sometimes occurs:

I researched this and confirmed with the county assessor’s office, this TIF project originally started out in 2006 as Waverly Day Commercial Park for Tractor Supply Co. and Tecumseh Poultry. Then several years into the process the city of Waverly informed the assessor’s office they really intended for this to be two separate TIF projects. The assessor then split this TIF into 2 separate projects (with approval of their legal counsel) as if it had originally been set up as 2 separate projects.

If you look at our published TIF reports (PDF) tax year 2010, shows the data as 1 project under TIF ID #55-9801 and the narrative indicates a legal description of Lots 1 & 2, Block 1 Day Commercial Park.

Then in tax year 2011, TIF ID #55-9801 narrative indicates name of project as Tractor Supply only and the legal description of Lot 1 Block 1 but another TIF ID #55-9803 is listed as Tecumseh Poultry with a legal description of Lot 2 Block 1. The TIF information for the historic years was restated to show as if this project had been reported as 2 separate projects from the beginning.

This was an unusual situation and does not happen on a regular basis.

Jack wants us to modify the program to still complain to the log for auditing purpose, but overwrite existing data with new data even when the audit fails.

Acquiring location data for TIFs

There doesn't appear to be any open data portals that provide TIF location data.

Does the Dept. of Rev. annual PAD report overlap / deprecate Journal scanning?

PDF and XLS: http://www.revenue.nebraska.gov/PAD/research/tif_reports.html

Suppress TIFs whose sum(total_tif_excess_taxes) = $0

@elviejito wrote:

In http://opennebraska.github.io/pri-tif/DOUGLAS/OMAHA/index.html at the bottom, there are around 24 TIF projects that are recorded in the PAD spreadsheets but do not seem to have ever actually started. Some are reported for a few years and then go away and are not reported again. These projects contribute to the "Taxes Paid" grand totals but probably shouldn't. Would it be possible to only display a TIF project from the point where something appears in the "Total TIF Excess Taxes" column on the spreadsheet?
This would make the "Taxes Paid" sum more accurately reflect the difference between the "Taxes Refunded" sum and the "Taxes Paid" sum, especially in the city, county and state grand totals. Thanks.

@jhannah wrote:

aren't those TIFs that were, in fact, TIFs though? It seems Wrong to hide valid data?
If they weren't getting refunds, I have no idea why they bothered to get approved for TIF status? http://opennebraska.github.io/pri-tif/DOUGLAS/OMAHA/28-2222.html

@elviejito wrote:

That's the point. They're not getting refunds. They are just paying normal property taxes (remember, green means property taxes paid, red means property taxes refunded). Skyline Retirement was reported to the State as a TIF project until 2013 even though no money was refunded to it, after which Omaha no longer bothered to report the project to Dept of Rev/PAD. Apparently for some reason Omaha sometimes reports TIF projects to the State even though they haven't gotten off the ground. I don't think we need to include these never-activated TIF projects since they only bloat the overall "taxes paid" figure with projects that never were.

Add Creative Commons or GPL license?

@elviejito said:

I'd like to post a notice that the database raw data and code is available for download by request using either a Creative Commons license or a GPL version. Let me know what you think.

I think licensing is confusing and time consuming. There are lots of different CC licenses, which one are you suggesting?

gitter hook test

hmmm

PAD in flat html

Preview: http://opennebraska.github.io/pri-tif/

From /static-www using /db

Add 2023 data from PAD

https://revenue.nebraska.gov/PAD/research-statistical-reports/tax-increment-financing-annual-reports-legislature

New About.tt2

I just uploaded the latest about.tt2 to the master - templates code and pressed "commit". Seems like something more or different needs to be done.

Corrections / rewording of About page

Oh sorry @elviejito I just now saw your Aug 31 email that reads:

Nancy Hicks, the Lincoln Journal-Star reporter who is working on the story about the database, took exception to the accuracy of the paragraph that starts "For example..." so I rewrote it making it a bit wonkier but meeting her approval. If you could substitute the following paragraphs for the one paragraph that starts "For example...", I would appreciate it. What the About section loses in simplicity it gains in publicity (hopefully). She thought her story could come out over the Labor Day weekend.

For example, you may think that your property taxes are going up because the city is broke. That's not quite true. But you are paying property taxes so real estate developers don't have to.

With Nebraska TIF, the developer pays the full taxes on the improved property to the city. However, the taxes on the increment (the improvements) are diverted from public coffers.

Different jurisdictions do this differently. In Lincoln’s case the tax increment money is used to pay off a 15-year City bond that paid for parts of the TIF redevelopment. In Omaha's case, the City simply declares that it (the City) owes the developer the estimated amount of the increment over 15 years and annually refunds the taxes on the increment to the developer until the estimated increment amount is paid.

The end result is the same – money that otherwise would go to schools and other public services is diverted to a developer. Each new TIF project requires city services (police, fire, sewage processing, schools), but the TIF project does not pay for them, you do.

The rest of the About section should stay the same.

Add totals to main page and county pages?

@elviejito wrote:

I also recommend adding totals to the main page - "Total for Nebraska: " and to the County pages - "Total for _____ County: "

Should the County and City lists be vertical tables like on the City page? Is that too much visual overload for the main page? Would they sort alphabetically instead of by TIF sum?

PAD in Angular.js (Codepen)

https://gist.github.com/reitmanj/6aef548c9090e249dbaf

Add 2016, 2017 data to City Council Meetings project

In the Omaha City Council Meetings project, our archive currently spans Nov 4 2008 through March 22 2016. Update the archive with new files, and re-generate the TIF report.

Whoops. Major change in TIF Base and Excess Taxes.

For City: Bennington, County: Douglas, the text at the bottom: $301,551.61 Dial-Ridgewood, LLC represents only the total taxes paid in the year 2015. Turns out, if we look at the PDF version of the 2015 TIF Report, the total Base taxes paid since 2007 are $29,706.63 and the Total TIF Excess Tax paid since 2007 come to $1,519,602.81. This would be a change affecting all results in all Cities and Counties. The graphs look correct; just the totals are off. Turns out we have to sum the Base Taxes and Excess Taxes for each instance of a TIF project. Maybe the text at the bottom of the page can read (in green) Taxes Paid: (then in black) $29,706.63 (in red) Taxes Refunded: (then in black) $1,519,602.81 (followed by the link to the name of the development). We could then put a similar line of text on the home page between the graphs and the Counties to show the Statewide totals. See page 9 of the 2015 TIF Report (PDF) for comparison - http://www.revenue.nebraska.gov/PAD/research/tif_reports.html. My apologies for not catching this sooner.

Bad data in TIF_REPORT_2008.xls

Hi Jack, please ask the PAD folks why when we download the 2008 XLS file from

http://www.revenue.nebraska.gov/PAD/research/tif_reports.html

On lines 899-901, TIF ID # 24-0950 reports tax years 2007, 2008, 2008.

No other data in this spreadsheet repeats a tax year on the same TIF ID.

Thank you.

Merge "So Sioux City" and "South Sioux City"?

http://ne.tif.report/DAKOTA/index.html
Presumably we should ... munge the data to merge those?

Add 2022 data

It's #41 again, but the distant future. :)
2022 data now available: https://revenue.nebraska.gov/PAD/research-statistical-reports/tax-increment-financing-annual-reports-legislature

Add PAD CSV to data.opennebraska.io?

Would that give us anything interesting, tool-wise?

(In previous years we used Socrata)