Troup County Commission Chairman Ricky Wolfe appeared before the LaGrange Development Authority on Monday to talk up the benefits of tax allocation districts.

A local bill in the current legislative session will authorize a vote on the issue July 20 to coincide with primary elections.

A tax allocation district is not a tax. Instead, it allows a developer to finance infrastructure costs from revenue bonds that would be paid off from the increased taxes generated by the development. The local governments and school system would continue to get existing tax revenue from the property and would get the full benefit once the bonds have been retired.

Wolfe noted that local governments have no obligation for debt service on the bonds. All the risk is on the bond investors.

“I feel we need every possible tool in the toolbox to help with economic development,” Wolfe said, because projects might never get financed otherwise in the current economic climate.

West Point, which approved TAD financing in November, hopes to use it to redevelop a blighted area along the Ga. 18 corridor. There were six TAD referendums in Georgia last year, and West Point’s was the only one that passed.

Wolfe said 31 projects in Georgia have used TAD financing, mainly in the Atlanta area, and none have failed.

“If we have that tool in Troup County, and Troup County is known as being TAD-friendly, I think it will give us a tremendous competitive advantage,” he said.

He said it won’t be an easy sell to voters with all the anti-government, anti-tax sentiment in the air.

“The timing is not good,” he said, “but if we wait until the timing is good, we’ll never do it.”

Columbus, Newnan and Auburn, Ala., continue to drain sales tax revenue from Troup County, but a TAD might help the county attract some large retail development of its own, he said.

“If there’s not some movement in the next couple of years, the train will have left the station and it will be harder and harder to attract big-box retail developers,” he said.

Joel Martin can be reached at jmartin@ lagrangenews. com or (706) 884-7311, Ext. 235.