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.)