LOCKWOOD — A request to expand the boundaries of the Lockwood TEDD (Targeted Economic Development District) will go before the Yellowstone County Board of Planning on Aug. 14. Their decision will be forwarded as a recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners, which will hold a hearing on the request at 9:30 am on Aug. 21.
The Lockwood School Board has made known their opposition to the proposal of 10 property owners adjacent to the TEDD, who are requesting that their properties be incorporated into the TEDD. In a letter circulated to numerous parties and media, the school board says that the action is being seen as a “bait and switch” after the board’s neutral stance in regard to the formation of the TEDD. They are concerned about the impact of removing future new taxes from the school district and the necessity of taxpayers outside the TEDD, having to pay the difference.
Big Sky Economic Development orchestrated the creation of the TEDD as a means to fund the infrastructure of a commercial industrial park to attract new manufacturing businesses to the area. A TEDD is a tax increment finance district, the creation of which establishes a base line for tax revenues for all taxing jurisdictions. All future new tax revenues generated above that base line are directed to the TEDD to be used to fund infrastructure inside the TEDD, for a period of two, three or more decades.
The Lockwood School Board took a neutral stance on the formation of the TEDD when EDA spokespeople pointed out that business development in the TEDD would also generate business growth in areas around it, the tax growth from which would benefit the school district. The School Board members said that they would not object to the TEDD formation so long it remained at the size proposed.
Lockwood School Superintendent Tobin Novasio pointed out in his letter that there is limited area in Lockwood for business growth and moving much of that area inside the TEDD eliminates the potential for tax growth for the school district.
