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A community on the brink of divisiveness came together Thursday night to acknowledge everyone had the best interest of its unemployed in mind.

During Thursday night’s City Council meeting members of the community and the governing body took time to address the elephant in the room – viable jobs for those in need.

Councilman Joe Woerner started the conversation off by speaking to the Payment in Lieu of Taxes [PILOT] tax abatement program.

Woerner described the agreements with waterfront master redeveloper iStar as a credit card arrangement. [See below for a description of that agreement.]

“iStar is putting the money up front and down the road, [in the next 30 years] our taxpayers will be making monthly payments to pay off that bill,” Woerner said. “They are not paying for the infrastructure. In the next 30 years, the residents [who live in their buildings] will be paying that debt off. I would hope that at least we would get some points or frequent flier miles.”

Woerner said while the work to establish a comprehensive workforce development policy is paramount, the community needs to go back further into an individual’s life.

“For me the two things that are really important are intervention, when someone is in the process of getting into trouble and even more important to me as a new parent we need some parental support.” Woerner said. “I would like to see some of the benefits of development pushed in that direction.”

Councilwoman Yvonne Clayton spoke of the city’s current initiatives that include a running roster of available jobs on the city’s municipal website.

“These are not city jobs,” Clayton said. “These are jobs from other employers and they range from unskilled labor to very skilled.”

Deputy Mayor Amy Quinn who has led the charge to establish workforce development policies said she has met with a small group of municipal employees to find a way to best address the issue within all five-year tax abatements.

We want to encourage businesses to hire locally,” Quinn said.

But because the business that apply for tax abatements range from those with hundreds of employees to those with a handful of supporting staff they have opted against a percent-based model. Instead the city council will look for each company or developer to provide a narrative on how they will address workforce development.

Quinn has said they will look for what someone applying for a PILOT will do to hire locally in terms of construction and/or what efforts they will make to hire local employees.

“If you are not going to make any efforts we will know that from the get and if you have a plan then we will know that from the get,” Quinn said. “If they are not going to meet requirements of work force development they will need to provide us with a report as to why they can’t. The theory behind that would be – Let’s make it harder for them to not do workforce development than to do it.

Local contractor Duane Small thanked the governing body for making workforce development one of their focal points.

“As long as we keep moving forward and doing this, this could be the greatest city on the east coast,” Small said.

City resident Tracy Rogers implored the City Council to use its Social Service Department to obtain grant funding.

“There are grants out there under HUD and other areas that could actually be supplements,” Rogers said. “They may not create jobs but provide ways of interacting and building this community to help those that are broken.”

Woerner, who has consistently voted no on the special assessment abatements, said it is not a good deal for the city.

“The tax payer in those homes pay 100 percent of their tax bill.” Woerner said. “My point is that while the schools are getting their money they are not getting their money from those tax payers; the rest of the city is paying.”

PILOTS:

Typically, PILOT programs exist to attract new homeowners into developments. Under a PILOT program, developers and then homeowners make a payment to the city instead of paying typical property taxes. They pay an amount equal to city property taxes, plus a 5-percent payment to the county. They do not pay school property taxes, and their county taxes are significantly lower than those paid by typical homeowners. This results in an all-around lower tax bill.

But the master redeveloper PILOT program functions along with a special assessment, so property owners will pay the same total amount in property taxes as they would without a PILOT agreement. The city will still receive its share of property taxes and the county will get its statutorily required 5 percent, but the funds normally dedicated to the school tax and the remainder of the county tax will pay debt service on the bonds used to fund infrastructure repairs over the next 30 years.

A taxpayer pays about 57 cents of each dollar in property taxes to the city; about 23 cents of each dollar to the school; and about 20 cents to the county. For property owners participating in the PILOT and special assessment program, 57 cents of each taxpayer dollar will go to the city; five percent of that, or just under three cents, will go to the county; and the remaining 40 cents will pay debt service on the bonds.

The PILOT program expires in 30 years. After that, residents of the new developments in the waterfront area will see their property tax bills being divided in the same was as a typical bill is, with portions benefiting the city, the county and the school.

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