Performance
The City of League City is committed to improving the community's quality of life through the development of high quality commercial projects in all areas of the city as authorized by Chapter 380 of the Texas Local Government Code. As opposed to "tax abatement", the city has invested public funds in qualifying projects by making investments in the form of tax reimbursements, fee reimbursements, fee waivers, and cash grants.
For a full detailed spreadsheet of current 380 agreements, click here.
The chart below shows all commercial revenue collected by the City of League City from Sales and Use Taxes, Commercial Property Taxes, and Commercial Fees.
The chart below shows all “investments” made by the City of League City to facilitate the development of private projects in League City.
The chart below shows all commercial revenue collected by the City of League City from Sales and Use Taxes, Commercial Property Taxes, and Commercial Fees as compared to the “investments” made by the City of League City to facilitate the development of private projects in League City.
The chart below shows the amount of Commercial Property Tax Revenue, Sales and Use Tax Revenue, and Commercial Fees collected per League City resident each year.
The chart below shows the amount of Commercial Property Tax Revenue, Sales and Use Tax Revenue, and Commercial Fees invested by the City of League City in private projects per resident each year.
The chart below compares the amount of Commercial Property Taxes, Sales and Use Taxes, and Commercial Fees per League City resident collected each year to the amount invested by the City of League City to facilitate the development of private projects per League City resident each year.
The chart below shows that the amount of Commercial Property Taxes, Sales and Use Taxes, and Commercial Fees collected in League City is growing at an average rate of 2.88% per year.
Economic Development Transparency Stars Summary
The City of League City, Texas is committed to improving the community’s quality of life through the development of amateur sports facilities and commercial projects. To accomplish these goals, League City uses Chapters 501-505 of the Texas Local Government Code in support of a Type B/4B Board to fund the development of amateur sports facilities and Chapter 380 of the Texas Local Government Code in support of commercial projects.
League City continually strives to earn and maintain the public’s confidence by improving our financial transparency and making information about our expenditures easier to understand. In order to increase our financial transparency and secure the Texas Comptroller’s Transparency Star for Economic Development, we have embarked upon a new initiative this fiscal year to learn new ideas and create new financial transparency tools.
Although it is formally called the “Section 4B Industrial Development Board”, League City’s Type B/4B Board is only authorized to use a ¼% of local sales tax for the “development of amateur sports facilities”. Due to the specific ballot language in which this 4B tax was passed by League City voters, the City of League City has not entered any economic development agreements that involve the use of 4B sales tax revenue. In accordance with the City’s efforts to promote transparency, all Section 4B Industrial Development Board expenses for the past 5 years have been provided on a transparency webpage dedicated to the Section 4B Industrial Development Board.
In order to support and facilitate the development of quality commercial projects, which are in keeping with the community’s goals and objectives, the City of League City uses General Fund Revenues through Chapter 380 of the Texas Local Government Code. We use the terms “invest” and “investment” to refer to any expenditure or commitment of General Fund for a commercial project in support of economic development. These terms to refer to public funds which are “invested” in the support of economic development projects that will generate a “return” in the form of new commercial tax revenue, new, quality, high-paying primary jobs, and/or retained, quality, high-paying primary jobs.
In the past five years, we have not used formal “tax abatement” in League City. As opposed to “tax abatement” or “incentives”, we have made “investments” in qualifying projects in the form of tax reimbursements, fee reimbursements, fee waivers, and cash grants. If and/or when we elect to use formal “tax abatement” as an investment tool for economic development, we will include it in our list of “investments” and include all uses of “tax abatement” in all our materials for economic development financial transparency.
In order to gauge our progress to increase our financial transparency in economic development, we embarked upon a process to retool and revise the Economic Development Strategic Plan, propose a significantly different methodology by which all proposed economic development projects will be evaluated for “investment”, studied best practices of municipalities which have already received the Texas Comptroller’s Transparency Star for Economic Development, created new financial transparency tools that are specific to our community, and established new benchmarks against which all future economic development activity and financial transparency will be evaluated.
In particular reference to new, financial transparency tools and benchmarks for economic development that are specific to League City, we:
- Identified all expenditures of public funds for economic development as “investments” as opposed to “incentives”.
- Identified all forms of commercial tax revenue and fees, either forgone, abated, or reimbursed, that were contributed to a project as “investments”,
- Converted all commercial taxable values to dollars of revenue ($) to create a very transparent and easy-to-understand framework by which to compare the amount of commercial tax revenue and fees collected versus “invested”,
- Showed all “investments” in terms of the total amount of commercial taxes and fees collected and the amount of commercial taxes and fees “invested” for economic development projects,
- Identified all commercial tax revenue and fees collected,
- Identified all commercial tax revenue and fees “invested”,
- Showed a comparison between the commercial tax revenue and fees collected and “invested”,
- Showed the amount of commercial tax revenue and fees collected and “invested” per capita, and
- Showed a comparison between the commercial tax revenue and fees collected and “invested” per capita.