Regionomics estimates tax impacts of existing and proposed development and analyzes the long-term balance between revenues and expenditures. Most cities and counties complete comprehensive plans outlining preferred development patterns over the coming 10 to 20 years. However, there is usually little or no thought given to the impacts of these proposed development patterns on the jurisdiction’s long-term budget and fiscal health. The large-scale annexation of existing housing developments, for example, will generate additional tax revenue but will also increase the need for public and emergency services. Regionomics has worked with several local governments and the planning firms hired to develop their comprehensive plans to quantify the long-term costs and benefits of the proposed commercial, industrial, and residential developments.

A related need of local governments is an independent assessment of their long-term fiscal health. Population growth or decline, economic changes, and differing patterns of development will impact revenue and expenditure trends and may knock these trends out of balance. Regionomics uses the jurisdiction’s detailed financial accounts together with demographic and economic the financial impact of individual categories of residential and business developments to develop projections of revenues and expenditures. The goal is to quantify any current or future structural imbalance – a long-term excess of revenues over expenditures.

Case Studies

The City Council of Hilliard, Ohio, was considering a major new multi-unit residential development in the city. Council wanted to understand the scale and fiscal impacts of the local retail spending by the residents of the development and turned to Regionomics. The resulting report translated the income of the residents to spending at local merchants to employment supported by this spending and the resulting municipal income tax revenue.

The City of Powell, Ohio, hired the planning firm MKSK to undertake an update of Powell’s 20-year-old Comprehensive Plan. Simultaneously, the City hired Regionomics both to quantify the impacts of development proposed by MKSK and to assess the City’s fiscal stability under status quo conditions. Regionomics collaborated closely with MKSK staff to understand the nature of their proposals, and worked with the Powell Finance Department to ensure that the City’s financial information was accurately incorporated in the analysis. Regionomics also participated in a variety of Steering Committee, Finance Committee, Council, and public meetings. The result was the Powell Comprehensive Plan Update. Regionomics completed all the analysis presented in Chapter 4 (Fiscal Analysis) and wrote the chapter.

Tax incentives and abatements are a widely-used and controversial tool of local governments. Columbus City Council and the Franklin County (Ohio) Auditor jointly commissioned Regionomics to conduct a comprehensive study of the economics, benefits, and costs of property tax incentives. The centerpiece of the study was a model estimating the fiscal impact of specific abatement deals on the budgets of the City, the County, and school districts. The model took into account the uncertainty of the true need for the incentive to attract or retain the company and its jobs, and the fact that attracting a specific development to a site precludes a possibly more favorable development on that site in the future. Regionomics created a template based on the model that the Columbus Economic Development Department can use to evaluate future abatement applications.