On top of the 555 million other reasons to question whether Chicago’s tax increment financing (TIF) system is working for taxpayers, the Community Development Commission offered yet another yesterday. The mayoral-appointed committee gave the initial nod to dole out $6 million more in TIF subsidies, this time to subsidize MillerCoors’ renovation of their new downtown Chicago headquarters.

But as WBEZ’s Richard Steele noted this morning, it’s wrong to assume that the public is “able to see how much that money is working and where it came from.” Like the many similar, and sometimes unsuccessful, TIF agreements that came before it, taxpayers are only being offered sketchy details on the proposed benefits of the MillerCoors deal.

If there’s something to be gleaned from this, it’s the importance of the sunshine ordinance recently introduced by Alds. Manny Flores (1st Ward) and Scott Waguespack (32nd Ward), which would force Mayor Daley to reveal what’s in his $555 million annual piggy bank. As the North Side aldermen prepare for a hearing on the ordinance next Monday, they’re reminding the public what’s at stake.

Watch Flores outline the key elements of the ordinance on Fox Chicago this morning:

On Monday, a line-up of expert witnesses will be called before the Finance Committee to debunk city officials’ claims that the TIF data in question -- budgets, spending records, progress reports, and so on -- is, as Waguespack puts it, “too amorphous” to release publicly. We’ll be following the hearing, looking for a good explanation for why creating a TIF clearinghouse is unduly burdensome when the city’s award-winning procurement website already includes some of the pieces to the TIF puzzle.

Speaking to Steele on WBEZ this morning, Wageuspack drove home why the ordinance is in the interest of good government:

WAGUESPACK: For us it really boils down to how we’re spending these taxpayer dollars and making sure that these dollars are accounted for in the city budget and that they’re no longer completely off the books. And that we just want to see, we want to show taxpayers where this money is being spent.

With the Olympics right around the corner, we shouldn’t be surprised to see more of the “bad public policy” that initially inspired Flores and Waguespack to introduce the ordinance. But if the measure ultimately passes, lawmakers and the public will hopefully have the tools necessary to stop such proposals in their tracks.