An attorney who worked primarily on Tax Increment Financing (TIF) related issues for Calumet Park was sentenced in Cook County to six years in prison for overbilling the village for several years. A state’s attorney’s investigation of [attorney Mark] McCombs was triggered in 2010 after Community High School District 218 Superintendent John Byrne started questioning…
Tag: TIF
More Central TIF Expenditure Info
In “Our View: Re:New’s [sic] work is just beginning,” the Daily Chronicle appears to be under the impression that all the downtown work done since 2008 has cost $10.8 million in Tax Increment Financing (TIF) dollars. Is this so? No. We started with land acquisition, architectural improvements, railway wayside horns, a skating rink, a pocket…
Pocket Park
[Update 6/18: Added photos after the jump.] Speaking of the pocket park, the photo below was taken there earlier this week. Also, grass and weeds are growing between the stones and a broken window adorns the west wall.
Error Correction: FY2011 TIF Surplus
In “City & School District TIF Surplus Budget Surplus Budget Estimates”, I put up a chart showing a City of DeKalb TIF 1 surplus for FY2011 (to be budgeted for FY2012) of $221,000. While this part is correct, I somehow at the time failed to understand that this was only the amount of the surplus…
Ellwood Historic Neighborhood Meetings
The following is a summary of documents obtained from the City of DeKalb involving a group from the 5th Ward, the City of DeKalb, and the Center for Governmental Studies (CGS) at NIU. The 5th Ward group was first called a “task force” although it has never been an official city committee. Now, the informal…
Chicago’s New Mayor Promises TIF Reform
From yesterday’s Sun Times: Tax Increment financing should be used to create jobs in “blighted communities”— not to reward downtown developers, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Thursday, vowing to take the “politics out of” former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s favorite economic development tool. Emanuel has asked former CTA Board Chair and municipal finance expert Carole Brown…
Expenditure Info, Central Area TIF Annual Reports FY2008-10
The following table was developed using the itemized expenditures pages of Tax Increment Financing (TIF) annual reports, Central TIF (TIF 1) only. [table id=15 /]
TIF Rally in Downtown Chicago
Community leaders voiced support yesterday for a re-evaluation of how TIF funds are allocated in Chicago. Gathered in front of the Chicago Board of Trade, 141 W. Jackson, they stressed the need for tax-increment financing money in neighborhoods and questioned the reasoning behind TIF funds for successful multi-million dollar corporations. The Mercantile Exchange received $15…
Sales Tax Losses in Central Area TIF
Figures are pulled from annual fiscal year TIF reporting of “revenue deposited in fund during the reporting year.” [table id=14 /] See p. 117 of the FY2012 proposed budget for the FY2012 sales tax projections for the Central Area TIF. The sales tax portions of TIF revenue will be discontinued in 2013.
FY2011 TIF Surplus
Per an intergovernmental agreement, the City of DeKalb promised to declare a 50% surplus of the Central Area TIF (aka TIF 1) increment for each of the 12 years of the extended and amended TIF district. The surplus will be paid to all taxing bodies in the same proportions as the regular property taxes are,…