Every year around this time Cook County clerk David Orr puts out a report on tax increment financing districts. In the past it’s been a computer printout containing data from the hundreds of tax zones throughout the city and county, organized under baffling categories like “equalized valuation,” “frozen valuation,” and “agency distribution percent.” He’d make a couple hundred copies, staple them together, and leave them in a pile on a counter in the county building. There they’d sit, of interest to no one but a few lonely academics, community activists, and reporters. Whether it was Orr’s intention or not, the reports’ obscurity helped conceal a major factor contributing to the city’s growing financial crisis.
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Things have changed. For this year’s report Orr had staffers working day and night on an impressive packet that details in plain terms just how much the city’s TIF districts gobbled up in 2006—down to the last nickel and dime. You can still puzzle your way through the mysteries of the “Tax Agency Distribution Summary” if you care to, but you don’t have to: Orr’s issued a fact sheet explaining exactly how much the program consumes and how it operates. He’s included a map showing the TIF districts blanketing the city and county, and he broke out the take, showing how much each district has accumulated since its creation. The bulk of the package is available on his Web site, cookctyclerk.com.
According to Orr’s report, TIFs swallowed more than $500 million in 2006. That’s up almost 30 percent from the roughly $387 million collected in 2005. And while the coffers expand—the 2007 take should easily exceed $600 million—the mayor’s new budget hits us with a property tax increase of $83.4 million next year.
What led Orr to break the news so boldly this time around? “I’m open to TIFs as a tool, but I believe there are significant abuses,” he says. “I believe we have reached a point in the process where the public needs much more information about how this program is operating.”
