NORFOLK, Neb. -- Norfolk residents are getting a closer look at Tax Increment Financing(TIF), a controversial yet potentially powerful economic development tool. A newly formed 12-member board, comprised of residents with diverse perspectives on TIF, aims to tackle the process and highlight the benefits it could bring to the community. TIF redirects a portion of property taxes from new developments to developers, covering specific infrastructure costs. 

“This was a kick off meeting of a process to try and educate the community,” said Norfolk TIF Committee Board member Jim McKenzie. “We want to educate ourselves on the nuances, all the nuances of TIFF, tax increment financing and to try and come up with some guidelines as a community that we can use to say what is a good utilization of tax increment financing and maybe what shouldn't be approved for tax increment financing.”

At this point in time, we're really trying to get a good feel for all the details behind tax increment financing, and look at some projects and then try to create guidelines because we can't tiff everything. So, we have to create some kind of guidelines for what is worthy of spending public dollars, and what is not a good use of that spending.

“To further discuss tif and inform the community, meetings will be held on the fourth Wednesday of every month,” Mckenzie said. “As far as a special date to see Tif go into effect, that will evolve as the meetings progress.”