Ark. Supreme Court rules that TIF districts can't take school money

As previously discussed on the blog, a TIF test case from Fayetteville had been submitted to the Supreme Court, and oral arguments were held earlier this month. The issue before the court was the amount of a school district's millage that is subject to TIF collection. The Supreme Court ruled today (J. Brown writing) that development districts allowed under Amendment 78 cannot use funds generated by the state-required 25-mill basic property tax for schools. Affirmed in part; reversed and remanded in part.

Here's the AP story by Andrew DeMillo. From the opinion: "The critical stumbling block we see with the City's interpretation of Amendment 78 is that the voters of this state were never put on notice that Amendment 78 would effectively undo Amendment 74 by funding redevelopment projects with a portion of the uniform rate of 25 mills that had previously been designated solely for the maintenance and operation of the public schools." Whew. This may have just saved us from another decade of Lake View and one big constitutional headache.

Update: Here's the opinion.