It was a two-for-one special on April 6, 2013 at Chicago State University when The CivicLab's TIF Illumination Project exposed the 14 TIFs in the 8th and 9th wards to light. Thanks to the South Area Civic League for pulling this forum together! If you would like YOUR ward Illuminated, please email us at tom@civiclab.us. The presentation was somewhat updated on September 4, 2014. If you would like your own copy of this presentation that shows all the data from this ward as well as examples from the TIF Hall of Shame, please visit The TIF Data Store @ http://tinyurl.com/TIF-Data-Store. The TIF Illumination Project is 100% volunteer driven but we have serious monthly expenses to operate the CivicLab, our home, plus we’d like to build an online platform to make this information easy to access. Thanks! Contact = info@civiclab.us www.civiclab.us www.tifreports.com

1. April 6, 2013
Tom Tresser

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www.civiclab.us

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4. In the evening – open enrollment workshops on all things civic...
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“TIF 101”
“Vegan Cooking”

5. Watch the 2 ½ minute promo @ http://tinyurl.com/TIF-101-promo-YT
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What are TIFs?

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What are TIFs?
• Created by municipality (state
statute)
• Boundaries cross political and
community boundaries
• Designed to subsidize some
business project in “blighted” or
under-served area
• Captures “incremental” property
taxes ABOVE base when district
was created
• Lasts 23 years

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How Do TIFs Work?
When the TIF is created,
the city tallies up all the
property taxes
generated by district in
that year (called the
"base" amount). After
that, all property tax
increases above the
base (the "increment")
are channeled to the TIF
district.
The property taxes
collected from
properties inside the
district BEFORE the
district was created
that go to units of
government stays
FLAT for the life of the
TIF (23 years).

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What are TIFs?
Under state law, areas proposed for TIF designation
must possess numerous blighting factors to be
eligible:
• Age
• Obsolescence
• Code violations
• Excessive vacancies
• Overcrowding of facilities

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TIFs Used On These “Blighted” Areas
40 S. Halsted
Apple Store

11. Better Government Association 11

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Where are TIFs?
• All over Chicago and Cook
County = 443 TIFs in 2011
• 163 in city of Chicago
• Additional 280 in suburban
Cook County

14. Where are TIFs?
TIF 101 14

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Where are TIFs?
Source: Cook County Clerk

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How Much Revenue Do TIFs Collect?
Source: Cook County Clerk

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How Much Revenue Do TIFs Collect?
2011 TOTAL TIF REVENUE FOR COOK COUNTY
City of Chicago
TIFs diverted $454 MILLION
Suburban Cook County
TIFs diverted $275 MILLION
TOTAL FOR 2011 = $729 MILLION

18. How Much Revenue Do TIFs Collect?
TIFs extracted $454 million in 2011.
That # is 53% of the TOTAL amount
of property taxes that went to the city
for its operations!
TIF 101 18

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How Much Revenue Do TIFs Collect?

20. How Much Revenue Do TIFs Collect?
Ouch!
$4.5 BILLION
DIVERTED
SINCE 1986!
TIF 101 20

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Click here to open
the 163 PDF
annual reports.
One by one.

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THE CITY HAD
$1.7 BILLION IN
UNSPENT TIF
FUNDS AT THE END
OF 2011!

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Impact of TIFs?

28. You can get this full presentation online at the TIF Data Store at
http://tinyurl.com/TIF-Data-Store. The full presentation contains this
data:
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- how many TIFs in the ward
- estimation of TIF property tax extraction from TIFs in the ward for
latest year
- if a TIF is 100% or close to 100% in ward, lifetime property tax
extraction
- how much money left in those TIF accounts FROM the ward
- what projects funded by TIFs in the ward
- examples from the TIF Hall of Shame
If this information is valuable to you, please sign up for our mailing list
at http://tinyurl.com/SignUp-CivicLab. If you are in Chicago and need a
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Please support the work of the CivicLab by making a deductible
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http://tinyurl.com/SupportTheLab-INN.
Find out more - info@civiclab.us.

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www.civiclab.us
www.tifreports.com