Review committee to begin work to expand expenditures of economic development funds

A document that directs how some economic development funds may be spent in Lawton will be expanded to cover more types of expenditures.

A review committee will hold its organizational meeting Monday to begin the process of amending the Skills Training, Education, Development and Investment (STEDI) Project Plan, a document linked to Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Districts. TIFs are development districts where investments in underused or deteriorating areas make the property there more valuable, with the resulting increase in ad valorem revenue used to pay the infrastructure upgrades that allowed development in the first place.

Lawton has three TIF Districts, with plans to develop at least three more in the near future. New ad valorem tax revenues from TIF Districts are allocated to specific categories, and the amendments being proposed to the STEDI Project Plan fall in that category. Those new categories are providing workforce training and internship programs to develop the skilled local that non-retail businesses will need; and providing home buyer assistance for that workforce.

Richard Rogalski, executive director of the Lawton Economic Development Authority (LEDA), said the TIF process has benefitted the community.

“The project plan is an amazing thing,” Rogalski said, adding Lawton “has really been on the move” in the last seven to 10 years, and the TIFs are part of the reason because they are the mechanisms to repay the citizens of Lawton for their investments in blighted areas.

Not only has LEDA been able to make payment on its reimbursement to the City of Lawton for investment of public funds in that TIF infrastructure, the entities that receive property tax revenue — school districts, Comanche County, the health department — have receives some revenue. So did a new creation: a category that allocates funds to educational efforts that focus on the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Rogalski said Lawton has three TIFs: two in the downtown area, including the Second Street retail development; and the Republic Paperboard plant in the west industrial park. TIF four is to be the PepsiCo warehouse built with the help of TIF incentives in the airport industrial park, while TIF five is expected to be Fisher59, also building a new warehouse in the airport industrial park. City officials also plan a TIF on the Westwin Elements site at Southwest 112th Street and Bishop Road, where a pilot plant for a cobalt/nickel refinery has begun operations.

Those new TIFS are the reason LEDA wants to amend the STEDI plan, Rogalski said.

“We also realize we’re trying to foresee where development will happen, 10 years in advance,” he said.

He said that is why officials have begun talking about other things TIF-related revenues could support, including workforce training. That training is vital, Rogalski and others have said, about the need for an educated workforce for new industries coming to the area. A second amendment would allow funds to provide housing assistance for those workers, he said, of a concept that would help bring workers to Lawton and offer them incentives to buy houses here.

The analysis of those proposals will be done by the review committee, which will hold its first meeting at 3 p.m. Monday at Lawton City Hall. The committee’s task will be making the findings on the eligibility and financial impact of those proposals, before preparing recommendations for the City Council. That committee will include representatives from each entity that receives ad valorem revenue from those TIFs, city planners, and three at-large members appointed by the mayor.