The Chicago political machine sees Tax Increment Financing as a bottomless purse to use to fund Olympic facilities for an Olympics that it has not, as of this writing, won:
While Chicago won’t know until October if it beat out its competition to win the 2016 Summer Games, the city has agreed to create a tax-increment-financing (TIF) district surrounding Michael Reese to generate the $100 million subsidy.
TIFs re-direct taxes away from schools, parks and other local government agencies bankrolled by property taxes. Property taxes within a TIF district are frozen at existing levels for 23 years.
The decision to draw a $100 million subsidy from the tax-increment-financing (TIF) — or create a TIF within a TIF to generate even more money — comes at the worst possible time for Chicago taxpayers.
Maybe Chicago’s city fathers should read the list of TIF reforms that the JLF’s Joe Coletti and Daren Bakst produced last year.