South Burlington – After multiple inquiries regarding their increased use of “tax increment financing” the South Burlington City Council has admitted to hiring external contractors from New York to manage the city’s finances. Manhattan firm Bialystock & Bloom, who have mostly worked with the finances of Broadway productions in the past, have been hired to oversee South Burlington’s financial assets.
The firm took credit for the tax increment financing plans being used in multiple projects, including the recently approved pedestrian bridge. The way tax increment funding works is that future estimated tax revenue can be used now and paid back when the revenue actually arrives. So far the city has used almost twenty-five thousand percent of its estimated tax revenue, meaning the debt will be paid off in the year 2269, barring further spending.
“The genius of this system is that it’s fool-proof!” said senior consultant Max Bialystock. “Half of these projects aren’t ever going to be finished anyway, and when the thing goes under, we collect on the insurance. The city will be rich, I tell you, rich! But they’ve got to stop making these things so…pedestrian!”
Bialystock claims that more outlandish construction projects are less likely to be completed, and so potentially more financially lucrative. He is on record as having supported the idea of Gondolas over I-89 rather than the pedestrian bridge.
“Actually, I wanted the catapult and Zorb balls,” Bialystock said, “but they wouldn’t go for it. They wouldn’t even consider the hot air balloon zip line idea, or the 500 foot bullet train. But I almost got ’em with the Gondolas. These people need to think bigger! The bigger the flop, the bigger the payday!”
South Burlington City Council Chair Helen Riehle confirmed that the city looked into multiple options, but considered most of Bialystock’s ideas “unsafe or impractical.”
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