AUBURN – Pat Finnigan promised Friday to do a better job following up with the state where tax incentives are concerned.

Finnigan, Auburn’s city manager, said she was not expecting to hear from state Department of Economic and Community Development concerning two 2002 TIF districts. She didn’t realize the state never received the TIF applications until June 29 of this year.

“I’ve waited a long time for other information from the state, and I was never concerned,” she said. “Should I have been a squeaky wheel? Yes, probably. But I knew they had no reason not to approve these districts, so I wasn’t concerned.”

Finnigan met with members of the Small Property Owners of Auburn on Friday to explain discrepancies in the two Tax Increment Finance districts and the city’s response. The group questioned the city’s actions in an open letter presented to councilors at Monday’s meeting.

Members had been told that the state did not have documentation of three TIF districts and were concerned that the districts were invalid. The city council has approved two separate bond sales for road and utility improvements based on those TIF districts. Debt payments on both bonds, one in the Auburn Mall area and a second downtown, are to be paid with money from the TIF districts.

“If there was a problem, I think we were concerned it could cause problems for taxpayers,” said member Robert Bernier.

Finnigan insisted that the districts became legal and valid the moment city councilors voted on them.

The TIFs, tax increment financing districts, allow the city to take property taxes from the district and use them to pay for roadwork, utility upgrades and other improvements in the area or return them to developers as an incentive.

The districts are:

• TIF District 9, created in 2002 in the Auburn Mall area. It was originally designed to set aside up to $6 million over 20 years to pay for road improvements around the mall, Mount Auburn Avenue and Turner Street. It has not been activated, however, and is not collecting revenue.

• TIF District 10 was also created in 2002, to pay for road, sidewalk and infrastructure improvements downtown. It was designed to set aside $4 million over 20 years. Councilors approved a $5 million bond for a parking garage in 2004. Bond payments would come out of that TIF district and parking revenues.

• TIF District 13 was created in 2005 and returns roughly $1.75 million in property tax revenue from the Auburn Mall area to developer George Schott. The remainder of the property tax revenue on the land will be redirected into the same fund as TIF District 9, to help pay for road improvements in the area.

Economic Development Director Roland Miller said he met with James Nimon, development program manager for the states’ Department of Economic and Community Development, to discuss all of Auburn’s TIF districts on June 29.

Miller said Nimon was reviewing the newest TIF district, number 13, and had not issued an acceptance letter. But Nimon was concerned that he did not have physical records for the two earlier TIF districts.

Miller said he alerted Finnigan to the problem after that meeting.

“Immediately, my priorities changed,” Miller said. “I was told to devote all of my energies to fix that problem.”

Finnigan said she did not brief city councilors.

“We did not because we were working on them,” Finnigan told members of a property owners group. “When we had the problems wrapped up, we were going to let them know then.”

Miller said there should be no repercussions. He plans to ask councilors to amend TIF District 9 in September. He will hand deliver copies of that amended district and of TIF District 10 that month.

“We expect to get approval from the state very quickly, because of the scrutiny these have gotten,” Miller said.