Huron City Council to vote on annexing Sawmill Creek Resort

HURON – Huron City Council is expected to vote on a pre-annexation agreement Tuesday that would annex Sawmill Creek Resort into the City of Huron.

The agreement is between the City of Huron, Huron Township, and Cedar Fair (dba Sawmill Creek, LLC). It states that the nine parcel, over 100-acre property, which is currently only located in Huron Township, would be annexed into the City of Huron.

According to the agreement, the proposed annexation is being done for tax increment financing or a TIF. A TIF is a public financing method that is used as a subsidy for redevelopment, infrastructure, and other community-improvement projects.

The agreement also states that the City of Huron will retain 100% of all income tax generated on the site, and Huron Township would collect 100% of bed tax and 100% of the Township’s current
property tax revenue.

What is missing from the agreement is how the annexation and TIF will impact how Huron City Schools collects revenue from the property. In a TIF, school districts do not collect taxes on a property’s increased value resulting from improvements. Sawmill Creek Resort is located in the Huron Local School District. Huron City Schools Treasurer Randy Drewyor told Huron Insider in an email, “Taxes to the school will not change due the annexation. The amount of school taxes are independent of taxing jurisdiction.” We then asked him a follow-up question about how the TIF will affect taxes for new improvements. At the time of this article’s posting, he had not responded.

The vote is scheduled to take place during Tuesday, July 13’s Huron City Council meeting.

The full pre-annexation agreement can be viewed below.

UPDATE Huron City Schools Treasurer Randy Drewyor says that the TIF will abate 100% of taxes to Huron City Schools on new improvements; however the district will receive 25% of an at least $400,000 service payment. When asked what is the estimated amount of tax revenue that the schools will lose as a result of this TIF, Drewyor said, “There is none because you cannot estimate taxes until the improvements are completed and the auditor completes a valuation. Additionally you don’t know when you will receive any additional tax revenue. The service payments are a guaranteed revenue with a guaranteed timeframe.”