Complaint filed to examine city's TIF district funds

CINCINNATI, Ohio (WKRC) – Critics of Cincinnati's tax increment finance (TIF) districts say the city isn’t being transparent about how the money from those districts is being spent.

After pleas to conduct an audit of current TIF districts wasn’t granted, concerned citizens are now asking the State of Ohio Auditor’s Office to investigate.

Michelle Dillingham says discrepancies in administration reporting should be enough to audit. Dillingham says the whole TIF district process needs to slow down to ensure everything is being done correctly and that public tax dollars are not being used and reported inappropriately.

No audit has been done, and now the city has 15 new TIF districts.

Here is a quick rundown of how a TIF works: Once a district is created, any increase in property value and subsequent increase in property tax revenue in the district would be put into a special fund. The money in that fund can only be used for public improvement projects within the district it came from.

“They voted on them, and that leaves us with the fact that now we don’t know if we will ever see an audit. We don’t know if we will ever get to the truth of some of these projects. That’s why we’ve turned to the state auditor to say it looks like City Council is not going to do its due diligence for the taxpayer, so we are looking to the state auditor to step in,” said Dillingham.

The auditor's office has a special investigation section that meets once a month to look at the complaints and decide which ones to investigate. Dillingham is hopeful the state will step in.

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