Progress Illinois

Right on the heels of our article noting the latest tax increment financing (TIF) reform activism in Chicago, the Reader's Ben Joravksy published a related piece yesterday on the newly-formed Raise Your Hand (RYH) coalition. The city's most dogged TIF reporter talked to a few parents involved in the organization, who offered more specifics about how they want to see the system changed to exempt the Chicago Public Schools from having their tax revenue siphoned off into TIF accounts.

I talked to Goldman this morning to get a clarification on RYH's proposal. While the organization originally told Joravsky that the state's TIF statute would need to be revised to exempt CPS, he now thinks it might be possible for city officials to achieve the same outcome by amending the ordinance that establishes each TIF district. 

Regardless of the level of government, Goldman believes that there won't be any action without Mayor Daley's blessing, which is why the organization is still requesting a meeting with his administration on the issue.  Joined by State Rep. and Democratic Cook County commissioner candidate John Fritchey, the coalition pressed the mayor again outside the Thompson Center this morning. Watch:

After months of silence on the issue, it was encouraging to see several Chicago aldermen voice anger in May over the Daley administration's opaque and inequitable use of TIF "porting," in which revenue captured in one tax increment financing district is transferred to projects in an adjacent district. In this week's issue of The Reader, Ben Joravsky describes the 10-member dissent as a "mini-revolt." He also explained why using TIF money for school construction distorts the original intention of the practice:

While fixing or building schools doesn't sound like such a poor use of public money, TIF isn't really intended to pay for projects like schools. In fact, while legal, using TIF to build schools is antithetical to the program. TIF projects are supposed to pay for themselves by subsidizing new development that will fill the coffers with more property taxes. Public schools don't pay property taxes. (And while some schools may help lift surrounding property values, others have been shown to push them lower.)

That's how many tax increment financing (TIF) dollars were spent in Chicago's 2nd Ward (which covers the Loop) between 2004 and 2008, composing one-quarter of the city's total TIF budget during that period. The stat comes from Mick Dumke and Ben Joravksy's latest barnburner on the city's TIF system. For the first time ever, the Reader duo examined how TIF money was spent in every active TIF district. "It's clear," they write, "that the money is not reaching many of the neighborhoods that need it the most."

Click here for the full piece, here for a complete ward-by-ward breakdown, and here for a few pictures snapped by Sam Adams documenting wards that received the most -- and least -- TIF dollars.