Lawmakers targeting cities' RDAs

Bagley began to fight the Sandy RDA after she learned cities could divert tax dollars from education without a resident vote or a truth-in-taxation hearing.

"It's easy for RDAs to fall under the radar and municipalities love that because no one was taking them to task on it," she said.

Mike Jerman, vice president of the Utah Taxpayer's Association, said the lack of public input on RDAs has allowed them to go uncontested for too long. Instead, school districts play the villain when they raise property taxes to compensate for money taken by the city's RDA fund.

"It's better government to be up front with who's really raising taxes," he said. "RDAs are a back-door approach."

Concern over RDAs has been brewing for several years, Jerman said, as more cities offer tax incentives to retailers to compete with neighboring cities. Such competition has led to an expanded definition of blight beyond itsit's original classification of areas too risky to be developed without tax incentives, he said.

"These definitions of blight are so subjective that ordinary middle class neighborhoods and fields can be considered blight," he said. "There's no real blight in Utah."

Jerman added that there are proper uses of RDAs to encourage development on areas such as toxic slag sites, but city leaders are using the label simply to get sales tax dollars.

Although the Sandy gravel pit typifies the problem, Jerman said the abuse of RDAs is rampant in Utah with cities like Murray looking to use RDA tax incentives to recruit a new soccer stadium.

"A soccer stadium is not economic development. It's entertainment dollars being shifted around," Jerman said. "They're just afraid if they don't do an RDA they'll be left out."

Bramble is quick to point out that reining in RDAs to eliminate retail is a fundamental shift in city redevelopment and will likely meet opposition on the legislature floor from developers and city leaders.

"We're stepping on some sacred turf as we proceed with this," he said. "But what you see here is an erosion of the property tax base."

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