Westborough Advisory Finance Board Supports Both STM TIFs
The special town meeting is Tuesday night.
The Westborough Advisory Finance Committee is recommending voters pass both business tax breaks on Tuesday night's special town meeting warrant.
The committee voted 9-0-0 supporting approving tax increment financing plans and 15-year tax increment financing agreements with MicroChem Inc. and Danafilms Inc.
The recommendations were posted Wednesday on the town's website.
The deal with MicroChem, at 200 Flanders Road, would include "exemption percentages as follows: Year 1, 50%; Year 2, 40%; Year 3, 30%; Year 4, 20%; Years 5-15, 10%," the warrant says.
The deal with Danafilms, at 5 Otis St., would include "exemption percentages as follows: year 1 - 10%, year 2 - 50%, year 3 - 40%, year 4 – 30%, year 5 - 20% and years 6 through 15 - 10%," the warrant adds.
The advisory finance committee's figures differ from the warrant article's wording.
The warrant article wording reflects a misprint, Chairman Edward Behn said. The committee's recommendation reflects the actual proposed deal.
In This article
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Danafilms
5 Otis St, Westborough, MA
More from the web
- MicroChem http://www.microchem.com/
- Danafilms http://www.danafilms.com/
Andy Koenigsberg
9:47 am on Thursday, August 2, 2012
A couple of questions for Fin Com:
1. - what is the actual revenue the town is forgoing?
2. - what is the expected increase in business income to local businesses expected from increased employees of the companies in the town, due to the expansion of Dana Films and the new MicroChem facility?
Jim Malloy
4:04 pm on Thursday, August 2, 2012
Andy - The first question is an estimate based on the two companies investment. We're estiamting that the amount of taxes we're foregoing to be $288,000 in exchange for new taxes we'll collect estimated at $1,649,000 (or about 6 times what we would be foregoing). The second question is impossible to even hazard a guess, but there will be 83 additional employees shopping, eating, buying gas, etc. as well as any business the two companies do with local businesses, But again, there's no way to even take a guess at what this would be.
Jim Malloy
4:04 pm on Thursday, August 2, 2012
One other comment is that I have posted the Power Point Presentation I intend to provide at Town Meeting on the Town Manager's blog on the Town's website.
Ed Behn
7:39 am on Friday, August 3, 2012
Andy,
I see Jim has already responded to your question. As I do not constantly monitor all Patch comments, if you have a question that you would like Fincom to answer by all means post it here but email me as well making me aware of the post. My email is on the town website. Thanks!
Andy Koenigsberg
2:57 pm on Friday, August 3, 2012
Ed and Jim - I am asking these questions for a couple of reasons - first, I'd sure like to know and second - these are the sorts of questions I'd expect people to be asking at Town Meeting.
As far as the new taxes estimate - is that number the cummulative number over the lifetime of the TIFs?
Thanks.
Paula Skog
1:56 pm on Thursday, August 2, 2012
How about some exemptions for small business? Is Westborough only interested in big business?
Jim Malloy
3:47 pm on Thursday, August 2, 2012
Businesses need to meet the criteria of the Economic Development Incentive Program (EDIP) as created by State Law. We can only work wtihin the parameters of the state law and therefore many smaller businesses may not qualify.
Steven Buttiglieri
2:57 pm on Friday, August 3, 2012
Hi Jim,
I had asked a couple of questions on a previous article related to the extra taxes the Town will receive due to business expansion vs the amount the levy limit can increase, and have a follow-up.
If I understood your explanation in the previous article, it seems that due to expanding business (i.e., growth), the levy limit increases by the amount of the additional taxes that can be levied and will be collected by the Town. In the example we were using, if a business was assessed $2.5 Million more due to expansion, the levy limit would increase by ($2.5M/1000 * tax rate) = appx $48,000.
If there were no TIF given to the business, then the Town would also be collecting that $48,000 from the company that expanded.
However, under the discount schedule laid out in the TIF, the company would only pay 50%, or $24,000, in additional taxes.
My question is, if the TIF is passed, would the levy limit increase by $24,000 or $48,000 for our example?