Surplus TIF revenues in Indianapolis are passed out by the tens of millions of dollars to politically-connected developers like Flaherty & Collins, which stuffs a lot of money in Mayor Greg Ballard's campaign war chest. In Chicago, surplus TIF funds are being allocated to the City's financially-pressed schools. The Chicago public schools announced that it will use $21.5 million in surplus TIF revenues allocated to the school district in November to hire more teachers according to the Chicago Tribune.
A proposal is pending before the Metropolitan and Economic Development Committee that would allocate up to $23 million in surplus TIF funds from the downtown TIF district to fund a 28-story luxury high-rise apartment building that Flaherty & Collins plans to build on the former Market Square Arena site that is outside the TIF district. Mayor Ballard is gifting the valuable land to the developer that should be used to build a new criminal justice center. The City-County Council is expected to approve the give-away once council members have cut their deals with the developer to get their "fair share" of the project. When it's all done and said, taxpayers will wind up paying at least 45% of the $81 million cost of building the high-rise luxury living apartments to provide subsidize housing for the top 1%.
1 comment:
"Surplus TIF funds" is gibberish, if there are excess TIF funds then retire the TIF. TIFs were never meant to be perpetual. Retiring TIFs is fiscally responsible and it returns much needed funds to property taxes.
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