The Village of DeForest is a fast-growing community committed to “Growing the Good Life”. Just a few minutes from Madison, Wisconsin, DeForest is home to a skilled workforce and exceptional connectivity for business. The Village offers access to all the amenities of urban living while maintaining its enjoyable quality of life for residents. It utilizes financing tools like tax incremental financing to accomplish its strategic and growth goals.

TIF is a financing option that allows a municipality (town, village or city) to fund infrastructure and other improvements, through property tax revenue on newly developed property and is one of the only financial tools allowed in the State of Wisconsin to incentivize business recruitment and retention. Generally, a municipality identifies an area, the Tax Incremental District (TID), as appropriate for a certain type of development. The municipality identifies projects to encourage and facilitate the desired development. Then as property values rise, the municipality uses the property tax paid on that development to pay for the projects. After the project costs are paid, the municipality closes the TID. The municipality, schools, county, and technical college can levy taxes on the value of the new development. The graphic below shows how tax increment can be created over time.

The Village of DeForest first utilized tax increment financing in 2000 by opening Tax Incremental District No. 1 as a Redevelopment District to address blight and dilapidated areas within the Village’s downtown. This district successfully closed in 2015. Currently, the Village of DeForest deploys eight different tax incremental districts strategically across its municipality’s boundary. Each of the districts are mixed-use districts with specific economic and financial objectives.

Since opening these districts, the Village has seen exponential growth. The total increment value created across all active districts amounts to over $530,000,000 of value.