Open Illinois.org

Two days ago, the Chicago City Council met and passed the city’s budget 38-12. Throughout the budgeting process, more and more people have raised concerns about the Mayor’s TIF fund. With the city struggling to stay in the black, people are questioning the wisdom of setting aside half a billion dollars in a special fund for use on dubious “development” projects.

Yesterday, Mayor Daley criticized the 12 aldermen who voted against his budget, and was quoted by the Chicago Tribune saying,

I really appreciated those 38 aldermen, who stood with me and the taxpayers of the city of Chicago, because the other ones are not going to convince me to raise taxes or raise fees. I don’t care what they told me. I don’t care what excuse. Not one of ‘em gave me one amendment to cut basic services or their theory as to raise taxes. Not one of ‘em. So, be proud. If you voted no, then be proud of it, and I’ll debate any of ‘em any time, but they won’t. And we’re one of the few cities in America that balanced our budget.

This is disingenuous. In fact, a number of Aldermen did suggest using the nearly half billion dollars in TIF funds to close the budget gap. Alderman Tom Allen (38th ward) and others argued that the parking meter money was a non-renewable source of funds. Once it is used, it is gone. The TIF funds, on the other hand, renew every year, and are a better source of money to close a temporary budget gap, argued the alderman.

This latest obfuscation is part of the Daley administration’s pattern of skewing the truth about TIFs. In a number of interviews and op-eds, the mayor or people connected to him have portrayed the TIF system as an open and democratic process. In response to these claims, Ben Joravsky, a Chicago Reader columnist and local TIF expert, issued an invitation to Daley and his CFO Gene Saffold to have lunch with him so that he could explain how TIFs work:

But, look, I can understand why he’s confused. This TIF stuff can be hard to follow. So I tell you what I’m going to do, Mr. Safford. How about you, Mayor Daley, and I meeting up for lunch? As an bonus, I’ll explain how the TIF tax is shielded from taxpayers by keeping it off property tax bills. And how a lot of the money goes to the wealthy even though it’s supposed to help the poor. And how it takes money from the schools. And …

On second thought, you might need to schedule two lunches to learn exactly how the darn thing works.

This is a battle the Daley administration is losing, and already there are rumors that some aldermen are drafting a new TIF transparency ordinance to replace the existing system. This is most welcome: our own Kate Campaigne Piercy, IPI’s Director of Government Reform, wrote a policy paper in December of 2008 calling for more TIF transparency. We look forward to seeing how the alderman improve the current system.