City Government
Eagle, Others Owed Nearly $8,000 From Urban Renewal
May 10, 2011 
A clerical error in calculating the “base value” on some open space in Eagle’s urban renewal district has resulted in about $8,000 in taxes being diverted away from the Eagle City general fund and other taxing units, based on a revelation uncovered Tuesday.
Seems that a parcel of land was split and split again in rapid succession, which caused an appraiser to improperly assign a “0” base value for the 2009 and 2010 tax years–which resulted in the nearly $8,000 in taxes going to urban renewal instead of the city general fund.
Ada Assessor Bob McQuade said his office was notified of the error by an independent appraiser who stumbled across the situation in the course of doing a private appraisal. McQuade provided the $8,000 approximate figure based on the tax levy for the land.
This type of misdirection of tax revenues can happen when bare ground is subdivided, annexed and then designated as “urban renewal” land faster than the system can keep up with the moves.
To correct the error, the GUARDIAN thinks the simple answer would be for the urban renewal agency to fork over the undeserved cash to the city. Actually the other taxing districts like Meridian Schools, ACHD, and Ada County each should get their portion of the diverted taxes as well.
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Comments & Discussion
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May 10, 2011, 7:29 pm
Just disband all urban renewal districts. It is just a fund for unelected individuals to spend hard earned tax money on their pet, uneconomical projects. Caldwell mayor get free family pass to YMCA.
May 11, 2011, 10:47 am
Urban Renewal is nothing more than Legislature sanctioned, waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayers. Their decisions are final and not subject to any voter approvals yet they get away with spending millions and millions of property tax dollars, make everyone’s property taxes go higher and corruption abounds in the way they hand out public money to developers who would normally have to pay their way. They also create false values for otherwise junk property.
UR projects would never pass muster with voters. Hence, the legislature keeps us out of the picture on UR allocation of funds and debts created by UR districts. Yet we taxpayers are forced to pay the bills.
May 11, 2011, 9:48 pm
I hope no one actually believes that the UR is itching to write a check for the city general fund! Haven’t we all learned that the whole UR process is a sieve that only drains in one direction?