Chicago parents take on Daley

[Hannah Bell]

The Armies Are Gathering (Chicago)

There must have been more than 100 people—most of them parents of Chicago Public Schools students—sitting in the auditorium of a south-side grammar school last week and talking about radically reforming Mayor Daley's tax increment financing program....members of Raise Your Hand are demanding that Mayor Daley and schools CEO Ron Huberman change the TIF program right now.

It's a pretty audacious request from an outfit that didn't even exist a few months ago. The group consists of parents from across the city who banded together in April after Huberman announced that a deficit approaching $1 billion would force him to fire hundreds of teachers and raise maximum class size from 30 to as high as 37...To understand what they're proposing, you need to understand how the program works.

The amount people pay in property taxes is determined in part by the assessed value of their property. After the City Council, at Mayor Daley's urging, creates a TIF district, it basically freezes the level of property tax revenue that the schools, the parks, the county, and all the other taxing bodies can divvy up from that district for up to 24 years. If property in a TIF district increases in value during that time, the extra tax revenue goes into a special account controlled largely by Mayor Daley.

The schools, which count on property taxes to fund 37 percent of their budget, see none of it. So when they need more money, they have to raise their tax rate—or make cuts, or ask the state for more help, or all of the above. Last year about $250 million that without TIF would have gone to the schools was diverted into TIF accounts...

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/tifs-chicago-public-schools-cps-school-funding/Content?oid=1984315

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. TIF financing is evil

Its sinful how much money is lost by schools because of TIF deals.