The Chronicle‘s editorial board is skeptical of TIRZs, like Mayor White (cue Sedosi’s Mrs. White label), in this editorial that is (gasp) timely:
Originally envisioned as a way to allow designated areas of Houston to retain tax dollars for development projects, tax increment reinvestment zones have popped up like bureaucratic mushrooms all over the city. Run by boards appointed by the mayor, zone managers have wide latitude in spending a share of property tax revenue collected from their constituents.
[snip]
White points out that several of the tax zones spent more than half their reclaimed tax dollars on consultant reports and overhead and budgeted almost nothing for projects. He met with TIRZ board members and managers last winter and told them he intended to review their budgets to ensure public accountability in their expenditures and plans. White said he told them to get their act together, but they failed to implement his directions in a timely manner.
In a letter to City Council, White suggested that the TIRZ itself may be an unfair mechanism for channeling tax dollars. As property values rise, because it keeps the additional tax revenue, a TIRZ effectively shifts the burden for paying for police, fire and other city services to taxpayers outside the zone.
“Having studied each TIRZ,” wrote White, “I have difficulty explaining in some principled fashion why some portions of the city are covered by a TIRZ and other similarly situated portions of the city are not.”
The mayor is right. Reinvestment zones were never meant to be open-ended bureaucracies setting their own goals for the expenditure of taxpayer dollars. Those that currently exist should be put on a time clock to accomplish their missions with budgetary efficiency.
In the future, every TIRZ should be implemented only for specific improvement projects and should be promptly terminated when the project is finished. After that, TIRZ — R.I.P.
The editorial board forgot to mention the Mayor’s latest TIRZ — for the new downtown Pavilions development. However, with the ed board’s firm stance here, should we assume the Chronicle views the new TIRZ with skepticism and would want to see it sunsetted after the improvement project is finished?
And speaking of open-ended bureaucracies, will the ed board now agree with us (and other county officials) that the Sports Authority’s time is up?
