Tif In Nebraska: Is The Community Development Law Broken Or Are Proponents Of Reform Merely Playing A Broken Record On Repeat?

Abstract

INTRODUCTION|In 1978, Nebraska voters approved a constitutional amendment to allow the use of tax increment financing ("TIF") as a means to redevelop substandard and blighted areas. In 1979, the Nebraska Legislature added supplemental provisions to the existing Community Development Law (collectively, the "Statute") to grant local governments with the power and discretion to use TIF. TIF is a financing tool that involves the property taxes that are collected as the result of an incremental increase in property value generated by a redevelopment project in an area that has been declared substandard and blighted. The collected tax moneys from the incremental increase in property value are typically used to pay off a TIF bond, which is issued in order to provide up-front capital for public investments, such as public infrastructure, associated with the redevelopment project...