It’s been a good year for Loyola University. In October the city awarded the school up to $46 million in tax increment financing dollars for the renovation of several buildings on their north lakefront campus. In May the Illinois General Assembly quietly slipped it another $8 million for the very same project. Loyola officials were never required to explain publicly why they need the additional $8 million, or how the funding will benefit the state that’s giving it to them. Indeed, most of the state reps I talked to didn’t know that Loyola had already been the beneficiary of a TIF deal.
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Three years ago legislators began demanding that administration officials put the governor’s promises in writing by signing a “memorandum of understanding.” And last year Madigan started posting these so-called MOUs on the Illinois House Democrats’ Web site, www.housedem.state.il.us. Many legislators says Madigan’s trying to embarrass Blagojevich by calling attention to his reputation as a double-crosser. But Steve Brown, the speaker’s chief spokesman, says the postings have nothing to do with politics. “We believe in open government,” Brown says.
The Capital Development Board is the “state’s construction management agency,” says David Blanchette, the board’s public information officer. “We either manage or fund virtually all of the state construction projects. Since this is using state funding they are passing it through us.”
The Loyola grant is particularly difficult for local taxpayers to swallow coming as it does on the heels of funds from a TIF, a City Council-created district in which property taxes are diverted from the schools and parks and county to subsidize economic development. The central idea behind TIFs is that the tax dollars forfeited during their 23-year terms will eventually be offset by increased property tax revenues. But on this deal the city will get exactly zero in return for its millions: as a nonprofit institution, Loyola University is tax exempt. Even worse, the city will take a loss in revenue: $2 million of the Loyola TIF funds went to buying the Root Photographers building at 1131 W. Sheridan for use by the school, converting taxable property into a facility that’s tax exempt.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/AP Photo/Seth Perlman.
