Nell Holcomb faces tax decision

Nordenia USA had 20 years to make use of a property tax funding mechanism to pay off its bond, but the company only needed 19. The Cape Girardeau County plant has paid off its bond a year early, meaning the tax-increment financing arrangement, or TIF, is finished and that the Nell Holcomb School District will see a revenue bump this year.

The payoff raises some questions for the district, according to superintendent Darryl Pannier. The school district must evaluate whether to roll back its tax levy, he said.

"I want to do what's right for Nell Holcomb. I want everything we're entitled to by law," Pannier said.

Nordenia would have been paying more than $164,000 a year in taxes to the school district but has operated under a tax-increment financing (TIF) agreement since 1989. Most of the money paid for taxes was sent back to the company to repay the tab for such things as water and sewer lines built when the company first moved into Cape Girardeau County. The school district received about $1,500 in annual taxes, based on the value of the land before Nordenia developed it.

On Thursday, Pannier learned about Nordenia's early payoff.

On Friday, he learned that financing for the school district's foundation, which also comes from Nordenia, is part of a separate financing agreement dating back to 2000, a fact unclear until the Nordenia TIF payment was announced. Pannier, superintendent for the past two years, is also the school district's business manager but said he'd always heard the foundation's income referred to as "TIF money."

According to Jerry Reynolds, the county assessor, the foundation's money comes from an industrial expansion program negotiated in 2000.

In 2000, as part of a $17 million expansion plan, Nordenia and the county agreed to a 10-year tax abatement plan, during which the company would make decreasing annual payments, starting at $65,000, to the school district's foundation in lieu of taxes. Nell Holcomb's foundation doled it out for a variety of projects, Pannier said.

The post-TIF tax money must go directly to the school district's coffers; state law dictates how that money must be used.

Pannier said this is a crucial year for the school district because the county assessor will decide how taxes are assessed from the company in the future -- whether to deem the facility new or existing construction. Reynolds said he will make that decision later this year.

Pannier said he plans to call county officials next week to learn exactly what the tax changes mean to his district.

He said the school board will have to review whether the influx of new money will require a rollback of the district's current tax levy of 3.0774 cents per $100 assessed valuation.

The school district's foundation board will meet at 6 p.m. July 9 at Nell Holcomb School, 6547 State Highway 177; the school board will meet at the same place at 7 p.m. July 9.

Nordenia USA manufactures flexible packaging.

pmcnichol@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 127