On April 22, Rick Sharp, city council president and candidate for Carmel mayor, held a press conference in an empty field. He said it was one of many stalled construction projects that are already built into Mayor Jim Brainard’s “phony” projections for revenue.
On April 29, Brainard held a press conference at a construction site. The mayor answered questions from the media with the visual of the Drury Hotel being built behind him. The new building at 96th Street and Meridian wasn’t built into the May 29 Umbaugh report that Sharp uses to base his argument. Neither was excess tax increment financing from the Parkwood fund, just east of Drury Hotel.
“Standing in the shadow of this new Drury Hotel, there should be no doubts in anyone’s mind that Carmel is growing and our corporate tax revenues are increasing,” Brainard said. “Today, I am pleased to announce the results of our annual assessments from the Hamilton County Auditor’s office – a report that shows the City of Carmel’s TIF Districts will have $32 million more in assessed value, than was projected last year.”
Sharp attended this press conference, and afterward said he still doesn’t trust the mayor’s math. He said even if none of the projections in the May 29 report fall short, the Carmel Redevelopment Commission would still see a shortfall in TIF of more than $40 million. He said any underperformance of projections only adds to that problem.
“My press conference was all about how they missed their numbers,” he said. “We used numbers from the assessor’s office for about a dozen parcels. Many of the projects that the mayor announced were already known and have been approved for some time. The thing is that these are not conservative projections and that’s what they’re running on.”
Brainard said according to property tax records the total for all TIF is $1.113 billion, higher than the $1.081 billion quoted in the May 29 report. He said Umbaugh, the private accounting firm who prepared the report, prepares for setbacks by being conservative. He said only once when he’s been mayor has the city not met its TIF projections and he justifies that by saying it was during the height of the recession.
Included in the mayor’s number is $122 million projected to go into a reserve account for the Parkwood fund. This is because the project was paid off early but is still generating TIF dollars that can be captured.
But Sharp said that Parkwood TIF fund isn’t free money and the city council has wisely decided to save that money for an emergency, such as shortfalls in revenue.
“That was a move done by the council to protect the taxpayers,” Sharp said.
NEW PROJECTIONS
Projected 2015 in May 29 report
- TIF areas assessed value – $977 million
- Parkwood TIF reserve – $104 million
- Total: $1.081 billion
- Projected 2015 TIF from property tax records
- TIF areas assessed value – $991 million
- Parkwood TIF reserve – $122 million
- Total: $1.113 billion
- Difference: $32 million, or 3 percent more
Source: Carmel Mayor’s Office
