Issue 5 reported that Escambia County, Florida's Children's Trust was ruled exempt from contributing to tax increment financing districts. The mechanism deserves a second look now that it sits alongside Washtenaw County's PA 57 opt-out against the Ann Arbor DDA, Pickens County and the School District of Pickens County declining to participate in Central, South Carolina's TIF overlay, and Traverse City writing a millage exemption into its successor plan before anyone demanded one. Four jurisdictions, four mechanisms (statutory opt-out, judicial or administrative exemption, refusal to participate, and voluntary carve-out) producing the same result: the increment base is shrinking, and special-purpose taxing entities are the ones shrinking it. Any district modeling a multi-decade capture on the assumption that every overlapping levy participates is modeling a base that no longer reliably exists.

Source: Plat Street Issue 5 RW-P-4