Incentive programs are major tools used by communities to spur economic development, but they are often misunderstood. This will be a short series on economic development incentives. In each episode, I’ll discuss how a specific program works with a local example. Let’s start with Tax Increment Financing, or TIF. At its core, TIF is simply a municipality diverting future property tax revenue increases in a defined area toward improvements for a period of time. So let’s look at what that means