HB 2673 - DIGEST
(SUBSTITUTED FOR - SEE 2ND SUB)

Recognizes that the state as a whole benefits from investment in public infrastructure because it promotes community and economic development. Public investment stimulates business activity and helps create jobs; stimulates the redevelopment of brownfields and blighted areas in the inner city; lowers the cost of housing; and promotes efficient land use.

Finds that these activities generate revenue for the state and that it is in the public interest to invest in these projects through a credit against the state sales and use tax and an allocation of property tax revenue to those local governments that can demonstrate the expected returns to the state.

Provides that, beginning September 1, 2013, and continuing every five years thereafter, the joint legislative audit and review committee shall submit a report to the appropriate committees of the legislature. The report shall, at a minimum, evaluate the effectiveness of the local infrastructure financing tool program, including a project by project review. The report that is due September 1, 2028, should also include any recommendations regarding whether or not the program should be expanded statewide and what impact the expansion would have on economic development in Washington.