Municipalities face difficult decisions regarding the establishment of tax rates, and implementation of various types of taxes.
One decision is whether to implement a uniform tax rate for all taxable entities, or whether to differentiate between the tax rate applied to residences and that applied to businesses. IIC, Inc. completed a study of the effect of split tax rates (municipal property taxes) on local and regional commercial development using time series econometric analysis. We evaluated the investment decision of businesses to locate in a particular community based on prevailing tax rates, location, demographic trends, and the existence of split or uniform tax rates. Based on our research and statistical analysis, we concluded that location was the dominant variable explaining where businesses chose to invest, not whether a community imposed a differentiated tax rate.

When a city or town begins the process to set its budgets for the upcoming years, one of the key determinants of the educational budget is an informed projection about student enrollment.
IIC, Inc. has developed an enrollment model for projecting the likely enrollment of a school district using historic data and current information regarding number of births, number of housing starts, and general population trends. Using a cohort-survival method, the model predicts numbers of students based upon how many students have historically arrived at each grade level. In one case, the model was used to predict the number of students who would be enrolled in special education and bilingual classrooms as well, while recognizing the greater volatility within these populations. IIC, Inc. then documented its findings in a report and presentation to the municipality, and these enrollment projections have become an important tool to build budgets for future years.

IIC, Inc. recently performed a study examining the comparative financial health of various suburban communities in eastern Massachusetts.
We analyzed trends in various economic factors of each community, performed econometric analysis of factors affecting commercial and residential growth in each municipality, assessed the impacts of various factors on bond ratings, and evaluated the financial health of each community. This study updated a more detailed study performed three years ago that also examined the impact of state government finance on individual communities' fiscal health.