During a TV appearance last month, Ald. Helen Shiller (46th Ward) announced her plans to "experiment" with tax increment financing (TIF) transparency by putting "all of the information, all of the legislation, from the TIFs in my ward ... on our website."

Since then, a series of TIF-related documents have surfaced on the 46th Ward site. But are they the records that Alds. Manny Flores (1st Ward) and Scott Waguespack (32nd Ward) are trying to make public with their TIF transparency ordinance? 

Here are the items that would be available on the City of Chicago website under their legislation:

1) The ordinance establishing each TIF District and the accompanying Department of Community Development staff report.
2) The eligibility study and redevelopment plan, as amended, of the associated TIF redevelopment project area.
3) The full text of the original and all amended TIF redevelopment agreements.
4) All developer reports required by the redevelopment agreement, including payroll reports, project progress reports, and employment profiles
5) All annual reports for the associated TIF Redevelopment project areas, required to be filed with the Illinois State Comptroller under the Illinois Tax Increment Allocation Redevelopment ACT (65 ILCS 5/11 74.4)
6) All TIF expenditures not itemized in the TIF annual reports
7) Economic Disclosure Statements (EDS) for all parties to the agreement.

By our count, Shiller has met only two of the criteria in their entirety.  Specifically, she has posted the redevelopment plans and redevelopment agreements, via a series of PDF files scanned from the pages of the Council Journal.  Granted, these documents do offer some important historical information on her ward's five TIFs and, as such, represent a good start.  But Shiller's initial attempt is still a far cry from the spirit of the sunshine ordinance.  Not only does the measure call for more information -- including itemized project budgets, planning department staff reports, developer reports, and the full annual reports -- it would force the city to make them available in "machine processable" form so the numbers can be plugged into databases and analyzed.

Much like officials from the city's Community Development Department -- who themselves inadvertently made the case for TIF transparency earlier this month -- Shiller's "experiment" demonstrates that piecemeal solutions won't cut it.  The comprehensive approach laid out in Flores and Waguespack's ordinance is the way to go.

But unfortunately their proposal is inexplicably stalled in committee.  Following up with us yesterday, Flores said he's not backing down. If the planning department can't commit to the project, he is prepared to introduce a council order that would force them to act before the public gets burned by more bad public policy.

"This is money that belongs to the people," Flores said. "We have the technology, the know-how and people willing to do this for free. We need transparency."