In the latest issue of Chicago Magazine, reporter David Bernstein compares the legacies of Chicago's current mayor and his father in an article titled "Daley vs. Daley." Bernstein notes that despite high tax bills, low-performing schools, waste, corruption, and huge debts for public works projects, Daley I, much like his son, often got a pass from the public. But if there's one person who has been determined not to give the current Daley a pass it's the Reader's Ben Joravsky. His criticism of the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) system is featured in the article:
Urban affairs reporter Ben Joravsky has argued that Chicago's 160 TIF districts—particularly the nine or so TIFs in and around the Loop area—have become a "secret slush fund" for the mayor and aldermen to subsidize private developers (many of them friends or campaign donors to the politicians) in lucrative projects downtown. By Joravsky's count, TIFs suck away more than $500 million a year in property tax dollars that could be spent instead on parks, schools, libraries, and the city's ailing mass transit system.
Interestingly enough, Crain's reported this afternoon that Daley has decided to retire what Javorsky describes as the "granddaddy" of all TIFs -- the Central Loop district -- by the end of this year, freeing up $111 million in annual tax revenue:
At least in the short run, the action is good news for taxpayers, likely providing a windfall as soon as 2009 for cash-strapped local governments that have been scurrying to cut costs and find new sources of revenue. Public schools would get most of that, but about $20 million a year would be available for the regular city budget.
Crain's also notes that not everyone's thrilled with the news:
Mayoral aides clearly are not happy that a pot of money the mayor had tapped for everything from building Millennium Park to subsidizing development of Theater Row and Block 37 no longer will be available for those uses.
Since siphoning money from one TIF to pay for another has become common practice -- and the Central Loop is a favorite to tap -- it remains to be seen how these and other projects will fare.
Image taken from the Windy Citizen's TIF map.
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