Mayor Richard M. Daley's voracious appetite for tax-increment financing districts has received lots of media attention lately, and for good reason. A program that involves spending billions of property tax dollars too often is too secret and too subject to abuse.
But increasingly, the TIF story isn't in clouty old Chicago, but rather the suburbs.
A new report by Cook County Clerk David Orr indicates that, while TIF revenues in suburban Cook County grew 13% in 2008 compared with 2007, the TIF take in Chicago dropped for the first time, down nearly 11%.
The city drop likely was a fluke, caused by the expiration of the huge Central Loop TIF. But the longer-term trend is clear: The suburbs have been creating more new TIF districts than the city during this decade, and the proceeds - known as "increment" - have been following.
Thus, of $875 million in TIF revenues countywide in 2008, $379 million (43%) was raised in the suburbs. In fact, since 1986, total TIF increment in the suburbs has been $3.35 billion, according to Mr. Orr - not too far behind the $3.65 billion in the city.
Some, maybe most of that money has been used for good things, like luring private investment via public subsidies, just as in the city. But some surely is controversial, too.
For instance, according to Mr. Orr, the biggest TIF in suburban Cook is in Hoffman Estates. It was formed to lure Sears Roebuck from the Sears Tower, but the company has been in all kinds of financial trouble lately, and has deeply slashed jobs.
The second-largest suburban TIF was used to help redevelop the old Glenview Naval Air Base. They did a lovely job. But at least the retail portion of that development has had problems, with loans for the project now facing potential restructuring.
And even the "good" TIF projects pull money out of the regular property tax stream, sometimes diverting money from schools and at other times forcing taxes higher on non-TIF property.
As Mr. Orr put it, in 2008 Cook County taxpayers contributed a walloping $875 million into funds with little transparency and less accountability."
Meanwhile, the Civic Federation is weighing in on City Hall's refusal to disclose plans for future TIF spending that have been delivered to each of Chicago's 50 aldermen.
As reported here a couple of weeks ago, the city claims the documents are "internal" and not final. But that's not flying with federation chief Laurence Msall.
"What better time to seek public input than before the plans are final?" Mr. Msall says. "We see no public purpose in not disclosing plans, even if they are not final."
He adds, "The city needs to come forward, particularly at this time of economic difficulty, with any and all plans they may have to spend TIF receipts."
