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EDC Minutes January 15, 2016 Page 2 of 8 nominations of Vice Chair. Hearing none, Helgemoe asked if Freeichels would accept the position. Freichels confirmed that he would accept the positon. Motion/Second: Commissioner Freichels moved and Commissioner Larson seconded the approval of Commissioner Helgemoe as the Chair and Commissioner Freichels as Vice Chair. Motion Carried: 6 Ayes, 0 Nays Review Combined Tax Abatement &TIF Policy (Public Assistance Policy &Application) Chair Helgemoe asked Business Development Coordinator Beeman to provide a background to the Commission. Beeman informed the Commission that the Business Subsidy Policy will be moving forward January 25, 2016 in a joint Council/EDA meeting and Public Hearing. The new Public Assistance Policy & Application will be reviewed February 1, 2016 at a Council Workshop meeting then if confirmed; it will go to the EDA for approval at their February 8, 2016 meeting. No Public Hearing will be required for the new Public Assistance Policy. Beeman explained that both the city's legal and financial consultants suggested that the TIF and Tax Abatement Policies be combined into one policy, as this makes it simpler for city staff, developers, consultant, and all involved, and it is what the consultants are seeing as a trend in other metro city's policies. The TIF policy was last updated in 2000 and the Tax Abatement Policy was last updated in 2003. The new combined policy is now called, City of Mounds View Economic Development Authority, Public Financing Policy & Application. Ehler's, the city's financial consultant, combined the city's existing policies and is suggesting the EDC and EDA review the new version for consideration of approval at the February 8, 2016 EDA meeting. By combining the two policies, the new policy is condensed into essentially five pages with the rest being the application and criteria for scoring. This simplifies the policy and attempts to reference Minnesota State Statues as much as possible so that when the statutes change, the policy also changes automatically without the need to change the policy each time. Section I Policy Purpose, of the new policy is very similar to the original policies. Any reference to TIF or Tax Abatement was changed to Public Financing. Section II Objectives for the Use of Public Financing was simplified from the former technical and detailed language naming square footage etc. to a more basic guideline providing an overview for policy makers. Other areas of the old policy referenced TIF pooling of funds and other confusing concepts that are often changed by legislators. The consultants felt that getting too technical in policies will only confuse and convolute the intent of the policy. Section III dealing with Business Subsidies was cleaned up by removing redundancies and simplifying the language to sync with the Business Subsidy Policy. Section IV and V are virtually the same as the old policies. In Section VI Application Process for Public Financing, the fees have been updated to a $3000 non-refundable application fee. This fee will be used for any type of public financing and will cover the initial legal and financial consulting fees to determine if the project qualifies or not. If the project doesn't qualify, the developer isn't out much financially. If the project does qualify