The South Haven City Council has entered into an agreement with the city’s Local Development Finance Authority and the Downtown Development Authority to ensure that money generated from a proposed recreation millage actually goes to that purpose.
At a meeting this week, the council approved the arrangement with the DDA and the LDFA committing money they collect via the recreation millage to the city.
City Manager Kate Hosier tells us because the DDA and LFDA can capture taxes, they could conceivably keep funds they collect as part of the recreation millage. However, this deal will avoid that.
“We did go to both the LDFA and the DDA with agreements to share that capture,” Hosier said. “So, give it back to the city of South Haven so that we could use those for the recreation purpose, and both those entities as well as the city council agreed.”
Hosier says this ensures if voters approve the recreation millage on August 6, the money generated by the millage will go to its intended purpose.
Voters are being asked to approve a five-year, 0.5 mill levy for park operations and property acquisition. Hosier says with so many public spaces and programs in town, extra support for recreation is needed.
“We’ve got a number of volunteer groups such as junior youth baseball and softball and soccer as well as some pickleball groups that are really looking for some help with getting centralized, organized programming.”
If the milage is approved by voters, it will generate about $294,000 in its first year for parks. Of that, about $28,000 will be collected by the DDA and $2,500 would be collected by the Local Development Finance Authority.
The agreement approved by the city council this week means all of that money will all go back to the city for parks.
