Data talks on PILOTs, taxes
Once again, we owe a debt to Helen Burns Sharp, a tax-break watchdog who is calling for more public understanding, debate and oversight of tax incentives. She puts research where her mouth is.
She has demanded and compiled Hamilton County Trustee records that show $26 million in property taxes waived for nearly 40 companies in 2014 under payment-in-lieu-of-tax agreements — known as PILOTs — covering more than 60 parcels in the 2014 tax year.
The records show companies paid $9.1 million in taxes for properties that would have brought in $35 million had they not been reduced by PILOTs.
Times Free Press reporter Louie Brogdon, in a Tuesday story about her findings, pointed out that the uncollected $26 million could have paid for a new middle school or put a dent in the school system’s $200 million maintenance backlog.
Local officials have figures, too. They point out that the trade-off for that lost $26 million was this: In the city’s and county’s 15 active PILOTs, companies have promised to create 4,505 additional jobs, invest $1.6 billion into the local economy and pay $5.6 billion a year in new payroll. In addition, over the life of those agreements, the companies will pay $125 million to county schools, according to Charles Wood, vice president of economic development with the local chamber of commerce.
It’s important to note that Sharp isn’t against all PILOTs. She knows they serve a useful purpose when exercised correctly — as competitive enticements to bring new firms and jobs to our city or county. Those new jobs, in turn, bring our city and county more tax revenue from improved properties and more or better-paid workers when they buy things here and pay sales tax. It’s the “exercised correctly” part of PILOTs that raises Sharp’s eyebrows.
“Tax incentives need to be reserved for projects involving significant public benefit where the incentive really makes a difference in a company’s location or expansion decision,” Sharp said. “We have lots of needs in our community, and we are seriously eroding our revenue base with the number and magnitude of PILOT agreements.”
PILOT critics, including Sharp, say some of our older PILOT agreements are questionable because they went to companies long-established here, and there was no indication that those companies would leave or decide not to expand without the incentives.
Nor was there much public discussion about any of the PILOTs. That’s the real value of the spotlight Sharp has placed on tax-incentives as giveaways for industry. And she has raised awareness not just in county and city offices, but across a broad spectrum of citizens and citizen groups. Both the local tea party and a liberal-leaning group called Chattanooga Organized for Action have taken up the cause, albeit from different angles. The tea party wants no taxes, let alone tax incentives, and the other group wants to see an overhaul of the PILOT process now aimed at affordable housing to be redefined to really mean “affordable” housing.
This is — really — exactly what we need, folks: diverse public debate. This is visioning at ground level.
Great job, Helen Burns Sharp.
Data also talks in Ferguson
The citizens of Ferguson, Mo., found their voices when a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed black teenager. They spoke out about Ferguson’s culture of racism in the 67 percent black town governed and policed by whites.
The town officials said their “perceptions” were not true.
It was the classic he-said, she-said standoff. So the Justice Department took a dive into city police, court and email records. What DOJ found was explicit and shameful. The department found overwhelming evidence of entrenched and corrosive racism.
Data from 2012-14 shows that African-Americans accounted for 85 percent of vehicle stops, 90 percent of citations and 93 percent of all arrests. They were more than twice as likely as white drivers to be searched during vehicle stops, and were significantly more likely to be ticketed for speeding.
In the city’s court system, those overwhelmingly black cases were 68 percent less likely than others to be dismissed, and the cases lasted longer and resulted in more required court encounters. African-Americans’ cases accounted for 92 percent of cases in which an arrest warrant was issued by the Ferguson Municipal Court in 2013.
What had been an anecdotal, he-said-she-said complaint is now clear evidence.
What Ferguson — and America — does with it is all-important.