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| Experts have beef with Daley on TIF |
| 2009-11-30 |
| Mayor Daley is going on the offense in arguing for his beloved Tax Increment Financing program -- but experts say he is being less than truthful about what critics dub a "shadow budget." Daley has held news conferences and conducted radio interviews about "TIF"s in recent weeks. But in just 2 1/2 minutes during one radio interview, experts say Mayor Daley told a number of falsehoods about the controversial economic development tool. According to the city's own figures, nearly $500 million a year is diverted from the regular pool of property tax money heading toward Chicago schools, libraries parks, police, etc., into the obscure TIF funds, which are designed to promote development in "blighted" areas. Daley's TIF program is controversial because in addition to "blighted" areas on the West Side and other economically challenged areas, the mayor has used a novel definition of "blighted" to include parts of booming downtown. Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) is fighting an effort to start a TIF around Grant Park which would claim the AON Center and other thriving high-rises are "blighted." Here is what Daley told interviewer Alison Cuddy on WBEZ: 1. "Most TIF Funds don't generate any money," Daley said. Wrong. Figures from the Cook County Clerk's office show the funds brought in $495 million in 2008, the last latest year for which figures are available. "They generate a lot of property tax revenue -- a substantial number of dollars in total," said Woods Bowman, professor of public service management at DePaul University. 2. "Most TIF funds are used for schools, parks, libraries, ex-offender programs, job training, economic development to keep jobs here," Daley said. Wrong on everything but economic development. In recent years, Daley's administration has started using parts of the burgeoning TIF funds to fund improvements in some schools and parks, but those remain the exceptions to the rule as the lion's share of TIF money goes -- as intended -- toward economic development. TIFs were not designed to capture money that would otherwise have gone to school and park districts only to return smaller portions of it to them. They were designed for providing funding for sewers, curbs, lighting and other improvements to spur redevelopment in blighted areas "This is not operating cash -- these are capital funds that are pledged generally for infrastructure improvement," said Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation. The biggest TIF payouts go not to schools or parks but businesses such as $15 million to the Board of Trade; $10 million to Republic Windows, and multi-million-dollar packages to lure Boeing, United and Willis to Chicago. 3. Daley disagreed when the radio interviewer said the city generates "about half a billion dollars per year in TIF funds." Daley responded, "No, I don't think so. I don't think it's that high." Daley is technically right for last year, when the figure was $495 million (only 99 percent of half a billion). Wrong for the previous year, when it was $555 million. 4. Daley repeatedly interrupted the interviewer when she suggested that TIFS divert money from parks and schools by freezing property taxes in the TIF districts for a number of years and then putting the increases into development funds. "No. No. No. No, it doesn't," the mayor said. Actually, yes yes yes. "That's true. They used to deny that, but [Daley] needs to get a better briefing from his financial people. He's wrong," Bowman said. TIFs by their very definition divert money from other taxing districts into TIF funds used to improve the TIF area. In a truly blighted area, school and park districts suffer no loss because any additional tax revenues being raised in the 20-plus-year lifetime of the TIF might not have happened but for the improvements there. But in booming areas such as downtown where development likely would have happened anyway, that means hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes is off-limits to school and park districts which instead must reach deeper into the pockets of homeowners and and businesses in areas without TIFs. Msall, says it might be more accurate to say that TIFs divert "equalized assessed value" from school and park districts to development. The schools and parks still collect just as much money, just from different pockets. 5. "They don't really create a lot of money in TIFs," Daley said. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 Not surprising, Daley's a scumbag. |
| Posted by: Thrusort McGurque1645 2009-11-30 20:23 |