Open Illinois.org

Steve Stanek of the Heartland Institute comes out today with a story about economic planning gone wrong in the Chicago suburb of Hoffman Estates.

Thanks to generous tax increment financing (TIF) from the Village of Hoffman Estates and the bad management of a private developer, the 11,000-seat Sears Centre arena is going on the auction block, leaving taxpayers on the hook.

The Sears Centre snafu isn’t the first time Hoffman Estates taxpayers have financed private business development in their village.

Hoffman Estates jumped into the tax subsidies quagmire in 1989 when it helped Sears move 5,000 jobs out of Chicago to its current headquarters, largely through tax increment financing. Sears has received more than $200 million in TIF subsidies taken from schools and other local governments. To cover the lost tax money, local governments force others to pay more.

Our own Kate Campaigne Piercy has written about the lack of transparency and accountability of TIFs.

Isn’t it time to throw a TIF in Hoffman Estates?