As fate would have it, I sat down to write about inequity in Chicago a few hours after looters poured into the Gold Coast and Loop, busting windows, and, in some cases, clashing with police.
Coincidentally, the looting occurred just a few days after Cook County clerk Karen Yarbrough released this year’s tax increment financing report, in which she revealed how much the city’s TIF program stands to collect in property taxes and where the city intends to spend most of the money.
The moment the city creates a TIF district, all the extra property taxes paid by property owners in that district get funneled into a bank account the mayor can draw down from to pay for everything from new roads and sidewalks to subsidies for private developers.
That’s a flaw that will exist unless we pool all TIF funds into one economic development pot and equally distribute them throughout the city—as former Alderman Tom Allen once suggested.
Obviously, this is not the first time I’ve pointed this out. Probably won’t be the last.
That’s a lot of “tax revenue” that could fund “all number of other programs”—like, to cite just one, the police overtime we’ve kept accruing every summer.
