BROOKINGS Its been decided by Brookings County commissioners that a one-time administrative fee for new tax increment financing districts in the county wont be collected after all.
The decision to rescind the $3,000 fee came during the county commission meeting on Sept. 16 on a 5-0 vote. The fee was relatively new, having been implemented on a 5-0 vote at the commissions May 27 meeting.
The goal of a TIF is to help generate economic development, and its an increasingly popular tool used by various levels of government, but its also one that comes with some administrative costs.
Commission Department Director Stacy Steffensen said the move came after staffers took part in a recent conference in Pierre where new information came to light on the entities that can collect the fee.
We discovered that we can only charge the administrative fee for TIFs that are outside of any city limits, she told the Brookings Register. If the cities want to impose a fee, they need to do that themselves.
For example, if a community had a resolution in place allowing for a fee on TIFs, it could collect said fee from any TIF within its city limits. The county, however, could not simply because it wasnt the approving authority.
There was some talk about them sharing that administrative fee with the counties as the counties still have work to do and added work that gets put on the county to do those, Steffensen said. I think thats a bigger discussion.
Community-based TIFs and fee collection already takes place in Brookings, where, per information from Community Development Director Mike Struck, the city charges a one-time $10,000 fee for new TIFs.
For what its worth, no new TIFs were approved by the county during that May-September timeframe, and theres only one active TIF in the county: Its for Houdek, formerly known as Prairie AquaTech, near Volga, and since it predated the fee being approved then rescinded it wasnt affected.
Its possible the TIF fee might return before county commissioners in the months ahead for reconsideration, but if so, it could be as late as after the next session of the South Dakota Legislature.
In other business on Sept. 16, commissioners:
Observed a moment of silence regarding the Sept. 10 killing of conservative activist and media personality Charlie Kirk during an event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
Earlier this year, during their June 17 meeting, commissioners had also held a moment of silence following the June 14 killing of Democratic state lawmaker Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in their home in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota.
Commissioner Shawn Hostler shared his thoughts on the recent deaths.
Our political environment in the nation and also in South Dakota any threats of violence or violence toward anybody, I do believe that the sheriffs office, police department and the states attorney will investigate and prosecute any of that to the fullest extent of the law, he said.
Hostler concluded with this observation: Words can be talked and we can talk to each other. Violence is never an option.
Contact Mondell Keck at [email protected].
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