Chicago TIF Analysis

2023 Chicago TIF Illumination Only Available to Tom’s Substack Paid Subscribers.

[Intern Insights][Chicago 2022 TIF Visualization] [Chicago TIF Data 2010-2022]

Available nowhere else! Our 2022 report covers all the activities of Chicago’s 131 active TIFs.

In 2022 Chicago’s 131 TIF districts removed $960 million in property taxes from general use. They spent a total of $362 million. At the end of 2022 Chicago’s TIF districts were holding $2.5 BILLION – a record high! You can also watch a 39 minute brieifng on the work that includes the insights from our research Interns!

August 20, 2023

CHICAGO HAD A RECORD HIGH $2.5 BILLION IN PROPERTY TAXES IN
TIF ACCOUNTS ON JANUARY 1, 2023

A review of the 2022 annual reports of Chicago’s 131 active Tax Increment Financing Districts (TIFs) by researchers with the TIF Illumination Project has revealed some startling facts about local government finance. The CivicLab has been tracking and reporting on Chicago’s TIFs since 2013. We believe all residents of the city should know how TIFs remove hundreds of millions of dollars of property taxes annually and prevent them from serving the public. No other organization does this research. The City of Chicago does not provide this level of analysis.

Our analysis reveals that as of January 1, 2023, there was $2,537,526,915 in property tax revenue collected from Chicago property owners sitting in Chicago’s 131 active TIF accounts.

  Other findings of our analysis of Chicago’s TIF districts for 2022include:

  • Chicago had 131 active TIFs in 2022.
  • Since the TIF program was created in 1986 Chicago has created 186 TIF districts. A total of 55 TIFs have been closed or terminated. Seven TIFs were set to terminate at the end of 2022: Archer Courts (#67), Jefferson Park (#57), Montclare (#102), North Branch South (#34), Peterson/Cicero (#90), Portage Park (#58), and Roosevelt/Union (#68). Since these TIFs were active during 2022 and extracted revenues, they are included in this report.
  • There were two new TIFs created in 2022: Cicero/Stevenson (#185) which will expire in 2046, and the Red Line Extension (# 186) – which will have an extended life through 2058.
  • Total Property Tax Increment extraction or removal for 2022 = $959,702,231. This is the amount of property taxes dollars removed by Chicago’s TIF districts and diverted from local units of government.  
  • Chicago’s 131 active TIFs have collected a total of $8,455,620,581 since they were created. Chicago’s 55 terminated TIFs extracted $2,753,929,898 in property taxes while they were active.
  • Chicago’s TIFs (active and inactive) have removed a staggering total of $11,209,550,479 in property taxes from 1986 through 2022. This is the total takings from Chicago’s TIF Program as best as can be reconstructed from available records. There are no TIF annual reports available from 1986 through 1996.
  • In 2022 the Top Ten TIFs collected a total of $541,745,991 in property taxes. These are the “champions” in terms of removing property tax dollars from public use. The biggest property tax remover in 2022 was the LaSalle Central TIF (#147, created in 2006, due to expire in 2030) which took in $161,059,713. This one TIF has removed a total of $799,470,721 in property taxes away from local units of government since it was created in 2006.
  • The all-time champion in terms of property tax removal is the now defunct Central Loop TIF (#14, started in 1984 and cancelled in 2008) that collected a total of $986,767,582.
  • In 2022 the Top Ten TIFs in terms of fund balance were holding $1,150,446,141 in property taxes at the  end  of the  year. The TIF with the largest fund balance was the Kinzie TIF (#52, created in 1998, due to expire in 2034 – the life span of this TIF was recently extended from its original expiration date of 2022) holding $266,651,096.
  • Total expenditures from Chicago’s TIFs in 2022 was $362,370,313. This is how much all of Chicago’s TIF districts spent in 2022. The biggest spender in 2022 was the Kinzie Industrial Corridor TIF (#52) paying out $24,824,649. While matching expenditures to specific named TIF development projects is difficult (there is no language in the TIF reports to tie expenditures to named projects) we know that at least $12,221,817 was awarded to the construction company FH Paschen for the construction of the Green Line station at Lake Street and Damen Avenue.
  • The CivicLab’s TIF analysis reveals how the TIF program impacted majority minority wards. Here are the TIF totals for wards by racial majority (at least 50% White, Black, or Latinx) from 2021:

Wards that are at least 50% Black contributed 46.8% of all the TIF funds sitting in TIF accounts at the end of 2020 ($1,072,292,539 out of the total $2,225,387,244 TIF Balance at the end of 2021). Wards that are at least 50% Black received less TIF expenditures than White wards, even though there are four fewer White than Black majority wards.

  • Total revenues transferred OUT of TIFs in 2022 was $341,883,705. This means that 36% of the total amount of property tax dollars removed by TIFs was THEN moved or distributed in some way. TIF dollars are moved in two ways: $69,815,561 was transferred from one TIF to an adjacent TIF. This is called “Porting.” The other method of distributing TIF dollars is when the Mayor declares a “Surplus.” In these cases, the “surplus” dollars are distributed to the local units of government in proportion to the percentage of property tax dollars those units derive from the property tax collection process. In 2022 that amount was $272,068,144.  
  • The TIF Illumination Project looked at the TIFs carrying debt and paying financing costs associated with Chicago’s TIF districts. In 2022 8 TIFs used property taxes to pay a total of $28,531,437 to two banks.
  • In 2022 the Department of Planning and Development took $13,559,587 for administrative costs from the total flow of TIF dollars. This might be called “skimming from the skim.”
  • In 2021 91 Chicago TIFs captured at least 50% of the property taxes in their district, of those, 61 collected at least 75% and 6 TIFs extracted 100% of all property taxes collected in their districts. 2022 numbers will be available from the Cook County Clerk’s Office in late 2023.

Get the data UNDERNEATH this report! Purchase the spreadsheet with all the numbers (6 different data sets). Includes our famous “TOP 10” Lists!

See the 2022 data come to life!

Thanks to the Interns with the Chicago Metropolitan Data-Science Corps, we can see the Chicago 2022 TIF activity in a new light! [Chicago 2022 TIF Visualization] [Chicago TIF Data 2010-2022]

Ever see a Chicago TIF Report? It’s usually 38 pages long – a PDF document which lives on the City’s web space for the Department of Planning and Development. It looks like this:

Good luck grabbing all 130 of these!

So – if you want to examine one of these critters, click here->

LaSalle-Central-TIF-2021Download

Now, see if you get to the heart of the document. What does it tell you? Not an easy assignment, right?

We have scoured, analyzed, and reported on THOUSANDS of TIF reports. The result is a unique analysis. No one can give you the complete story of Chicago’s Tax Increment Financing Districts like we can.

We’ve been in the field since 2013 and have been called to present at over 250 public meetings and workshops. We are working with activists from seventeen cities across the country on economic justice campaigns centering on some noxious TIF scam.

+++++ DONATE TO SUPPORT THIS WORK +++++

Copyright 2020 The CivicLab (r)