Tax Increment Financing (TIF) District
What is a TIF District? A Tax Increment Financing (TIF) is a public economic development financing program, funded by the property taxes generated by the incremental new value from a development project, in this case CMP’s corridor project on Brown’s Point Road. Thus, TIF economic development projects are not funded by property tax revenue from residents but rather just from the CMP parcels.
Why create a TIF District? Creating a TIF District provides funding that is dedicated to economic development. The increased assessed value within the TIF District is “sheltered” from the Town’s overall valuation, which is how the Town’s share of county taxes, state revenue sharing and school budget are determined. Creating a TIF District allows the Town to capture up to 100% of the tax revenue on the increased assessed value. Whereas, if a TIF District wasn’t created the Town would loss about 40% of that tax revenue to higher county and school bills and lower state revenue sharing. Further, we can use TIF revenues as matching funds for grants to stretch this resource even further.
What can we use TIF funds for? The State determines what the funds can be used for which includes transportation and housing projects, economic development, town events, marketing, skills development, and training. The Town must submit an economic development program identifying projects within these areas to the State for approval and any subsequent change or additions to the program must also be approved.
So far Bowdoinham has used the program to fund:
- Village Development – public infrastructure improvements (e.g. sidewalks, crosswalk study)
- Old Town Hall - Renovations to town owned buildings which provide economic development
- Operating budget of the Town’s Economic and Community Development Department
- Events & Marketing (e.g. Celebrate, Open Farm & Studio Day, Bowdoinham News)
- Merrymeeting Trail - design, development and maintenance
- Village wastewater system feasibility study
- New Waterfront Park development
See the Planning & Development section of the 2024 Annual Town Report for details on the $1.5+ million in grant funds the Economic and Community Development Department has leveraged over the last year for economic development thanks to the TIF.
Periodically the State expands the program coverage. A recent change includes allowing a limited amount of funds to be used on renovating administrative offices which support economic development. The proposed amendment approved at the 2024 Town Meeting allows us to use TIF funds to make improvements to the Town Office and the Old Town Hall wherein these buildings serve the purpose of supporting economic development.
What are the details of our TIFs? We have two TIFs: the Pipeline TIF & CMP Riverfront TIF:
- The CMP TIF can be found here and an additional slideshows on the CMP TIF can be found here.
- The Pipeline TIF can be found here.
If you have an idea to use the TIF, please let us know. For more information, please contact Yvette Meunier, Director of Planning & Development at 666-5531 or [email protected].