Sen. Marchman moves to indefinitely postpone bill requiring local impact certification for URAs

Senator Marchman moved on the Senate floor to postpone Senate Bill 129 indefinitely, saying she wants more time to negotiate with the governor's team and local stakeholders after several iterations of the measure.

Marchman told the Local Government & Housing Committee that the bill would have required a local certification of impact when a development proposed an Urban Renewal Authority (URA) project and would have given special districts, fire districts and school districts the opportunity to agree with or dispute developers’ impact estimates. She said the bill also would have created a Legislative Council Services report tracking, by year, how many Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts are created and how much the state must backfill from the General Fund due to Amendment 23.

"We've been in conversation with the governor's team and stakeholders, counties, fire districts, and school districts ever since," Marchman said, adding that she has worked the issue for about three years and previously ran a bill in 2023 that the governor vetoed. "I'm gonna move to postpone it indefinitely so that we can keep working on this issue."

Committee discussion was brief. Vice Chair Snyder offered supportive remarks to Marchman as she navigates her first bill‑passage process. At the sponsor's request the committee took the voice vote called by the clerk and recorded the motion to postpone.

Why it matters: proponents said the change would have increased transparency about local fiscal impacts from URA/TIF creation and given affected taxing entities a formal opportunity to contest developers’ impact estimates. Opponents and supporters requested further technical work on how a certification would be implemented and how the report's data would be used.

Outcome and next steps: Senator Marchman moved to postpone Senate Bill 129 indefinitely; the committee recorded the motion at the sponsor's request and the measure will be taken offline for additional stakeholders discussions.