Could it be that Macomb County collecting taxes for the CIA?

There it was in black and white – in fact in bold type, all caps: “ESTIMATED 2013 … CIA TAXES.”

This Macomb County budget document was stuffed into the back of a lengthy report on property taxes.  None of the county commissioners who approved the report last week noticed the CIA reference.

I thought to myself, “Either this is one hell of a story, or one hell of a typo.”

Here’s where things got a bit strange. When I approached one official after the Board of Commissioners meeting and jokingly asked why the county is collecting taxes for the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency, I received a look of befuddlement. When I pointed to the heading on Page 15 of the report, the official said he didn’t know what the CIA acronym stood for.

I asked a second official. He thought it was probably a typo that referred to the DIA tax. He made a quick cell-phone call to one of his numbers-crunchers and, after a substantial conversation, the typo theory was ruled out. But they had no answers for me.

Hours later I received an email explanation that said CIA refers to a Corridor Improvement Authority which, like a Downtown Development Authority (DDA), collects taxes to finance improvements to a specific geographic area.

In this case, a CIA was formed in St. Clair Shores in 2007 but it apparently remains dormant.

So, I have a question: If a certain amount of tax money for a CIA or TIFA or DDA is siphoned from the DIA and the HCMA and other government entities, is it SMART to assume that there is no funny business going on?

Let the conspiracy theories begin.