By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
The Hays USD 489 school board will have a say if the new Hilton Garden Hotel will receive approval of its tax increment financing district.
The hotel would be a 100-room, $19.3 million project with a conference center. It would be located just west of Walmart in the Ottley Addition.
Because both the county and school district receive property tax money from the land in question, they both have veto power over the project.
The land on which the hotel will sit was zoned agricultural. If a commercial building was constructed on that property, the property value would increase.
A TIF figures the difference between the original value of the land and new value of the developed property. The taxing entities still collect the taxes on the original value, but the taxes on the increased value go back to the developer to use on financing and infrastructure improvements, such as water, sewer, roads and parking. The TIF would be in effect for 20 years.
The school district would see a partial increase in the funds it receives on the new development. The developers would still have to pay the general fund school mill level of 20 mills and the Hays district’s capital outlay fund of 8-mill levy on the improvements.
The district would not receive an increase in property tax for its supplemental levy of 14.92 mills or its .646 mill declining enrollment levy.
The estimated incremental tax for the project would be $3.7 million over 20 years for all the taxing entities, but Jacob Wood, assistant city manager, said he did not know how much of that would be school district taxes.
Tracy Kaiser, USD 489’s director of finance, said the district’s declining enrollment mill levy is only good for one more year— the 2018-19 school year.
Wood said based on the timeline for the hotel project, the declining enrollment levy would likely drop off the tax rolls before the first phase of the project is completed. He said the developers hope to break ground on the project yet this year.
Wood told the school board Monday the developers said they likely would not proceed with the project if they do not receive the TIF.
There will be a public hearing on the TIF on Feb. 8. Wood said the school district and county would have until March 12 to pass resolutions in opposition of the TIF. Such a resolution from either entity would block the TIF.
Board member Paul Adams asked what the staff levels at the hotel would be and if Wood thought it would affect the district’s enrollment.
The hotel would employ between 80 and 90 people. Wood said he thought the hotel will bring in management from the outside, but most of the other employees would be local.
The board members had no other comment on the issue Monday and took no action on the item.