Economic Impact Group · TIF Model
Tax increment financing pledges tomorrow's property tax growth against today's redevelopment. The pledge is the easy part. The hard part is whether the increment actually shows up — and what the county, the city and the school system each give up while everyone waits. The TIF Model projects that increment year by year and sizes the debt it can honestly carry.
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$46.8M of increment over 25 years, discounted at 5.5% with 1.25× coverage.
The problem
Every TIF proposal arrives with an increment schedule attached. It is almost always the developer's, almost always stabilized on day one, and it almost never separates what the market would have done anyway from what the district actually caused. A board that cannot rebuild that schedule is underwriting on faith. The TIF Model was built to end that.
How it works
The district is described once. After that every scenario is a few minutes of input — and the answer comes back on your digest and your millage, not on a rule of thumb borrowed from someone else's deal.
Layer 01
The parcels actually inside the proposed boundary, at the assessed values your tax commissioner actually reports. That line is year zero, and every dollar the model produces is measured against it.
Layer 02
Each project phased in by year — private investment, property type, absorption schedule. Assessed value follows from the ratio, not from a guess, and the phase-in is a real line on a real year.
Layer 03
Increment above the line, debt service beneath it, and what each taxing body forgoes in between. Supportable proceeds, coverage, payback year, and the assumptions panel that lets a skeptic check your work.
Capabilities
The projection, the sizing, the but-for test and the jurisdiction impact — all from the same inputs, so no two exhibits can quietly disagree.
Sizing solver
Drag the term and watch the capital stack move. The model re-runs the full increment schedule on every change and returns the largest issue the increment still covers at your coverage ratio — the number you actually need before the underwriter calls.
The but-for test
A no-district baseline runs beside the projection, so growth the site would have seen anyway never gets counted as increment the TIF caused.
Multi-jurisdiction
One district touches the city, the county and the school system — each consenting separately. See every ledger on its own, and the combined pledge, with school participation as a switch rather than an assumption.
Horizon
Absorption ends. Buildings depreciate. Debt service compounds. The model runs the full life of the district and reports it as net present value, with the phase-in window drawn in.
Deliverables
Export the full increment workbook, a designed one-pager for the packet, or a read-only link a commissioner can open on a phone without an account.
Stress testing
Phase-in, appreciation, coverage and rate move independently — so when the projection is one optimistic assumption away from failing, the model says so before the resolution is drafted.
Under the hood
Every dollar in the projection traces back to a parcel, an assessed value and a mill. Open any year of the schedule and follow the number home.
Assessed values, millage rates and exemptions as your assessor actually reports them — because $120M of investment does very different things in two counties with different digests.
Only value above the frozen base is pledged. The model never quietly credits the district with the base it inherited.
Phase-in and growth are modelled as two different assumptions, so you can see which one is carrying the forecast and stress each on its own.
Proceeds are solved off the discounted increment at your coverage ratio, rate and term — or run as pay-as-you-go developer reimbursement instead.
City, county and school district each carry their own pledge, their own forgone revenue and their own year of reversion — then roll up to the district total.
A no-district baseline runs alongside the projection, so what would have happened on the site anyway never gets counted as what the TIF caused.
Ready when you are
Set the district up once. Run every scenario after that in minutes. Walk into the hearing with a number you can defend to the board, the press and the developer across the table.
