Editorial Roundup: Illinois

Arlington Heights Daily Herald. March 31, 2022. Editorial: Legislation revising rules for development tax incentives in Illinois deserves serious attention The mere phrase ‘œTax Increment Financing District’� has the kind of aural sting that can rupture the eardrums of even the most dyed-in-the-wool, acronym-addicted government bureaucrat. Yet, TIFs, as the system is generally abbreviated, can have a profound impact on a community’s quality of life. A TIF can help restore a timeworn declining downtown, or it can suck much-needed funds from an elementary school classroom. Sometimes, it does both. Sometimes, it’s only the schools or the parks or the libraries or some other taxing body that pay the price. Legislation under consideration in Springfield aims to reduce the chances of the latter, and it deserves serious review. It is not much of an exaggeration to say that since Illinois first approved the TIF mechanism in 1977, it has become one of the most if not the most common means of encouraging development. The Illinois Municipal League estimates there are now nearly 1,500 such districts across the state spread across more than 500 cities and villages, most of them in the city of Chicago and the suburbs. How do they work? It’s a bit of a procedural sleight of hand that can take some study to understand, but the simple answer is that a community’s governing board identifies the property tax revenues within certain boundaries at a certain time, then declares that for the next up to 23 years, any increased taxes collected within that area will be used solely for encouraging development there. Since taxes always go up, this can be a nice incentive for developers who might not otherwise be inclined to take a risk on a certain section of town. But it also means that for up to 23 years or more, all those public schools, libraries, parks and other bodies relying on tax income lose a sizable chunk of revenue and have to adjust their own programs and taxing policies accordingly. For years, these taxing bodies have complained that they and their constituents suffer because municipalities — often competing with each other to lure developers — rush to employ a mechanism originally designed to fight blight as a means of bolstering infrastructure in fine areas where development could be supported in other ways. Legislation sponsored by Arlington Heights Democratic Sen. Ann Gillespie originally sought to reduce the potential 23-year period for a TIF’s duration, but that portion of the reform appears to have been abandoned, unfortunately. Developers have a legitimate concern about the viability of getting a return on their investment, but the prospect of giving up 23 years of property tax income remains a burden it would be worthwhile to address. Even with that removal, though, the bill’s provisions still call for involving local taxing districts more in the creation and oversight of districts and, importantly, strive to more precisely define ‘œblight.’� These are all key issues. It is obvious to anyone who has watched the advancing tide of TIFs that the tool can be too handy for planners to resist and too painful for local taxing bodies to endure. It is long past time the legislature began scrutinizing the TIF process, no matter how uncomfortable it can be just to hear the arcane term or, worse, try to plumb its real impact. ___ Chicago Tribune. March 31, 2022. Editorial: Governor after governor has failed to reform the Illinois Tollway. When will promises become action? Reform is meaningful only when the politician pledging it actually follows through. In the case of the Illinois Tollway, governors on both sides of the aisle have vowed to reform the troubled agency dating back to the 1990s. Yet each one of them proved to Illinoisans that their promises were nothing but political blather.