Geoffrey Propheter

My univ is on the verge of a 3yr contract with OpenAI, which will now give the feds access to anything emps/students use ChatGPT for w/o subpoena/CORA. Contract was in the works before the anthropic news, but I don't trust my leaders to care about such trivial things as academic freedom and privacy.

Seriously. I don’t think people realize the handful of us in this policy analysis space spend 98% of our time thinking about and studying this crap. Well, 98% for me because the Kings are having a terrible year.

To be fair, you issue debt, you build something. That something could be an amenity that boosts values. But that really depends on what you (taxing dists) buy and how it and the debt is managed. If you buy stuff, stuff needs to be maintained and replaced, which again needs tax dollars to support.

This means that if a taxing district treats the new EAV as windfall, it'll issue more debt, which will cause ptaxes to increase in the not-so-long run. Ptaxes capitalize into lower values, which means less equity. This mechanism will make prop owners poorer. It is such a stupid clause in HB0910.

If you live in Illinois, you have my sympathy for what your state lawmakers are about to do to you. If HB0910 passes as is, any megaproject's EAV will be allowed to enter a taxing district's debt capacity limit even though those projects won't be paying ptaxes on post-con EAV b/c of the freeze.

Greeley voters halt $1.1B entertainment-housing project, zoning reverts to original designations In a special election, Greeley halted a $1.1B project featuring entertainment and housing.

Given all the attention on the Bears, it’s easy to miss voters in my neighbor to the north, Greeley, overturning a local law giving taxpayer resources for a sports and theme park anchored mixed use development. www.9news.com/article/news...

Based Bears proposed uses at AH, I estimate the value of the property assessment freeze to the Bears in HB2789 is worth about $2b over 30 years, or $67 million a year before PILOT. I low ball multiple things to create lower limit. I wouldn't be surprised to see the est closer to $3b at build out.

On IN Bears fiscal note: worth pointing out my local tax $ ests from last week are close to this week's LSA numbers. I think they low ball (not unreasonably) ticket tax. Biggest unknown is district size. Taxpayer resources easily past $4b with current knowns. DC still holds on to the crown for now.

Add another $2.5b nom to that $4b est. I priced out just the countywide F&B sales tax in Lake and Porter, Lake doubling of innkeeper tax, and ticket tax and these come to $2.5b over 35yrs. To be clear, how you pay for debt is a separate policy issue from how much to go into debt & who pays for it.

IN offering Bears mega TIF through its PSDA program. PSDA’s are 1mi straight line from the PSDA border, so lots of cannibalization will occur. Lawmakers say it’ll cost $1b, but that’s only if you count like a politician. Debt service, mid-lease reno , tax exp, debt capacity opp cost alone are ~$4b.

New Iowa bill hopes to lure the Chicago Bears to the Hawkeye State The Bears' search for a new stadium has taken them across Illinois to Indiana, and now Iowa legislators are hoping their neighbors might look west.

Hahaha! I’ve had a night to sleep on this news, and still my only thought is laughter. www.wqad.com/article/news...

Pritzker to Cardinals, Bears and anyone else with a stadium: Illinois is open for business Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is expanding a financing scheme near the Missouri border and promises to compete for sports teams "in every world."

Here we go again. STAR bonds (but in IL), "transformational", politicians changing their minds...taxpayer dollars for sports facilities and data centers (and others ofc), so f'ing stupid.
www.ksdk.com/article/news...

Trail Blazers’ future in Portland less clear than ever as arena efforts meet resistance | Bill Oram The team is trying to secure $600 million in funding from the city, state and Multnomah County before the end of the legislature's 35-day session.

My favorite part of this article is where the author opines Portland has been mismanaged and then argues that a partial solution would be to give the Blazers' billionaire owner hundreds of millions more in city and county taxpayer resources. www.oregonlive.com/blazers/2026...

Olathe reveals site of proposed Chiefs practice facility, prepares for vote A public hearing about the STAR bond district and potential tax pledge will be held at 7 p.m. next Tuesday.

“Just local sales tax” is false. Olathe levies a ptax millage, and rezoning the parcel away from ag and making it exempt creates a ~$1.7m/yr cost for city residents; $37m in pv over 30 yrs. The county, schools, and state also will face ptax costs. www.kansascity.com/news/local/c...

Indiana's SB27 for the Bears has a $1 purchase option for the facility+land in 40yrs, or $0.34 in today dollars. A 15-acre stadium site's market value around Gary in 40yrs worth about $145m at 5% mean annual appreciation in future dollars. And the team wouldn't even have to buy the land.

Rays stadium at Tampa’s Hillsborough College could cost $2.3 billion Board members want government leaders to conduct an economic study on the proposal.

With a proposed Rays stadium cost figure finally being made public, a ballpark ptax expenditure estimate is possible, albeit with a huge error margin for lack of details. $2.3b (nom)/$742m (real). Team may also not have to pay parcel fees worth $294m/$97m, resp. www.tampabay.com/news/tampa/2...

FL has an initiative process. Get ballot language approved, get enough signatures, the question goes on the ballot. Otherwise there's no legal obligation in FL to put it on the ballot. Lawmakers could still do it as advisory. Miami has had votes on sports subsidies, eg MLS in '18; NBA in '96.

Outgoing Gov. Youngkin says he regrets failed deal for Potomac Yard sports arena | ALXnow Outgoing Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin doesn't have many regrets as he prepares to leave office. But he named the inability to get an Alexandria arena deal done in 2024 as one lost opportunity. The W...

Yeah, yeah, I remember that deal. That’s the one where it was a super duper mega TIF worth billions to leonsis and where your consultants so blatantly double counted state and local impacts and assumed $750 a night hotel rooms in the project potter forecasts. www.alxnow.com/2026/01/16/o...

NJ state Rs still had 30% of their lawmakers support the $300m for the arena, so the whole oligarchy argument falls flat. Maybe get your lawmakers in line first? Then again, KS and MO are full of Rs and they are jonesing to give billionaires loads of taxpayer $s. newjerseymonitor.com/2026/01/13/p...

You'll still have non-resident inc tax liabilities. The interesting empirical ? is if the cumulative non-res inc tax liability exceeds the marginal inc you'd earn playing a schedule for a school in a state that taxes income. State-by-state variation in income apportionment rules matters a lot here.

Franklin County approves larger share of casino tax revenue for Nationwide Arena renovation Both Columbus and Franklin County are agreeing to increase the share of casino tax revenues going to the FCCFA from 32% to 50% over four years.

Franklin Co vote will bring total city+county casino tax $ allocation to $12m annually, a $4m annual increase. But don't worry: it's money well spent bc none of the planned upgrades have anything to do with attracting concerts (ie bigger team store, new bathrooms).
www.10tv.com/article/news...

100%. numbers got mixed up in the article; I threw a lot at the writer. $6-$25b is pv for DC but it’s $6.3b nom and $4.1b pv for KS term sheet. So in pv terms KS has a way to go before it’s at the DC low end. If KS muni $s crowd out state $s, DC is safe. But if they add to, KS deal will get there.

Neat use of the tech. Notwithstanding debates on parameters, from a diversion story standpoint it'd be helpful to provide info on the baseline year and tax revenue (to evaluate the relative size of diversion). Tax policy will change over 30yrs (ie rate inc/dec) which will affect diverted $s too.

Kansas City Chiefs ownership won stadium deal compared to Denver Broncos Both the Broncos and Chiefs deals will involve tax increment financing which diverts tax revenue above a baseline amount to pay down infrastructure debt.

Kansas lawmakers did every NFL and pro-subsidy lawmaker a huge favor. KS has agreed to commit so much in taxpayer resources that every other team can argue their demands are cheap in comparison. And that's how subsidies continue their upward march. www.9news.com/article/spor...

Olathe officials to hold public hearing, vote on tax dollars for Chiefs project In the next 60 days, the Olathe City Council must conduct a public hearing, vote and adopt an ordinance that would pledge all new incremental general sales tax generated within the Sales Tax and Reven...

The state is using Chiefs HQ as a carrot for munis to give their tax $s too. States should always discourage, not encourage, horizontal local gov competition as it’s wasteful. Since KS gov has committed state $s to go the cost alone, munis would be foolish to help. www.kansascity.com/news/local/a...

‘Painful day’: Missouri officials react to Chiefs announcing move to Kansas • Missouri Independent Missouri learned Monday that the Kansas City Chiefs are moving across the state line to Kansas.

MO lawmakers, the best way to get back at KS isn't to woo their exes (ie lure KS biz to MO with $) but to doll yourself up. Take the money you don't have to spend on sports and invest in schools, infrastructure, etc, things that make regular people better off. missouriindependent.com/2025/12/22/p...

Ouch. Current est of public resources to the Chiefs is $6.3b (nom) and $4.1b (real). I assume the $2.775b "cap" is all debt financed. Cost comes down if state uses cash. Cap is not what is owed to bond holders but what the state commits to project. $6.3b is rivaled by DC deal for the Commanders.

Want a nutshell summary of how bad this Kansas deal is for taxpayers? So bad that the state couldn't even get the team to comp food for its suite. Even after agreeing to give the team $2.775b.

If the Chiefs don't have the site, wherever it is, under contract by 5/15/2026, they can terminate the agreement. Seems like a low bar. There are other stipulations that can lead to a terminated agreement; this one just caught my attention.

Florida CFO announces legislative proposal to oversee local government spending Florida's Chief Financial Officer, Blaise Ingoglia, is expected to hold a news conference on Thursday morning in Winter Park.

Many red states are having meltdowns over ptax growth. Ideas relying on subsidies will fail. FL CFO argument to create state fiscal oversight is dumb. Nothing says shrink govt by growing state govt. At least he correctly IDs local govt spending as one of the ptax causes. www.wesh.com/article/flor...