TIFS
Do You Have as Many
Questions as We Do?
The Rogers Park Review believes we are not the only ones who have questions regarding Tax Increment Financing and how TIF Districts, taxation and expenditures are shaping our neighborhoods.
We have contacted Jackie Leavy of the NCBG to ask if a representative of NCBG.org could come to Rogers Park to answer your questions and educate us on this important issue.
Neighborhood Capital Budget Group
NCBG is an organization of nearly 200 community based organizations and local CDC's whose mission is to educate and advocate for responsible TIF expenditures. NCBG recently began an "Organizing For Accountable Development" initiative regarding the effectiveness, displacement and accountability concerns that local neighborhood groups are now voicing.
We at the Rogers Park Review share those concerns and will sponsor the meeting and a place, date and time will be chosen based on your response.
Tell Us What You Think.
Do You Have as Many
Questions as We Do?
The Rogers Park Review believes we are not the only ones who have questions regarding Tax Increment Financing and how TIF Districts, taxation and expenditures are shaping our neighborhoods.
We have contacted Jackie Leavy of the NCBG to ask if a representative of NCBG.org could come to Rogers Park to answer your questions and educate us on this important issue.
Neighborhood Capital Budget Group
NCBG is an organization of nearly 200 community based organizations and local CDC's whose mission is to educate and advocate for responsible TIF expenditures. NCBG recently began an "Organizing For Accountable Development" initiative regarding the effectiveness, displacement and accountability concerns that local neighborhood groups are now voicing.
We at the Rogers Park Review share those concerns and will sponsor the meeting and a place, date and time will be chosen based on your response.
Tell Us What You Think.
16 Comments:
I would vote yes for having someone give us a crash course in TIF's and the creation of SSAs.
Rent a big room at the Loyola Fieldhouse & maybee get the Rogers Park Community Action Network involved in this too.
Hugh - thanks once again for the boost to our collective learning curve.
Paradise - for an excellent insight into why the big boxes have been so welcomed by cities lately (among other excellent insights) check out the reports prepared by Civic Economics on http://www.andersonvillestudy.com/
Now you have this Monday Night to spend boning up on TIFs!
Note:
Dear Neighbor,
The meeting regarding the proposed development for 1954-58 W. Birchwood, originally scheduled for Monday, February 13th at 7 p.m., is cancelled. The developer is considering changes to his proposed development. If the revised project requires a zoning change, we will reschedule the meeting at a later date and inform you of the time and location. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
If you have any questions, please feel free to call or e-mail me.
Michael Land
Staff Asisstant to Ald. Moore
773-338-5796
I simply cannot imagine that spending time learning what a TIF is and how it works a valuable use of anyone's time. It's a wealth redistribution plan that benefits a few at the expense of the many. What more is there to know? Here's a thought -- how about some simplication of tax schemes to make it a level playing field for all and let the free markets really work? Why should x taxpayer fund y taxpayer's neighborhood?
pamela-
i like the thought but i believe we need to work with what we have. TIFS aren't going away any time soon.
additonaly and almost as important, is the oversight initiative NCBG is working towards. communities everywhere are complaining of exactly the same thing we are with the devon/sheridan tif.namely, public money funneling into private hands and lack of control and transparency.
i think we need to support that initiative and explore how we can help.
The reason that TIFs or any other subsidy won't go away soon is because taxpayers refuse to stand ground on all this silliness and "just say 'no'" to it. There is virtually no subsidy that can be defended on financial, economic, or rational grounds. Grants (such as those for healthcare studies), aid programs to the needy are different. Yes to money for those who need it; no to wealth redistribution programs that inevitably benefit the few at the expense of the many -- many of whom can least afford it. If anyone thinks that the largest benefit of these subsidies doesn't accrue to those who need it least, then I promise to hold a seminar for all. Folks, we live in the land of Milton Friedman and other Noble prize winning economists who have penned all kinds of literature on these issues just down the road from us. Virtually no one (except for politicians) has dared to argue with them because, well, they can't win.
Yes, you can learn about a TIF so that maybe you get a little more of that piece of the pie. But I say that anyone who can afford to eat out more than once a month isn't economically in need (read: deserving) of what a TIF may offer. Will a TIF really help the impoverished elderly? Will it be of benefit to the abused single mom? Will it somehow feed the children who happen to enter Field school hungry? Or provide medical services for those who are in need? Then why are we giving any taxpayer funding (and a taxcut is funding) and giving it to developers, Loyola, or anyone who has a bank account with more than $5000 in it? So, we, the middle class can improve our 'hood and eventually force out all that we don't like looking at be it the women who swear at their small children or the bangers? That's not solving problems. It's just relocating them. While I'm happy to relocate the criminals, I'm not so keen to do it on the backs of working people who then get displaced!
Money -- and taxpayer dollars is money -- is a limited resource just like trees or oil. It's not a bottomless pit, and the taxpayer pocketbook can only take so much as even Europe has discovered where they are now cutting social programs left and right. Tax cuts for one group means that there is less $ for another purpose and/or that taxes will eventually be raised.
So I say that we need to say no to these boondoggle plans. Because, Anne, no matter how much you learn about them and how to work them there will be a party (developer, large company, whatever) that has infinitely more $ and expertise to work it more to their advantage. It's a no-win proposition and the only way to possibly win is for taxpayers to change the rules by getting rid of the boondoggles.
pamela-
i agree 100%, and i cannot stress ENOUGH, the importance of what you have stated here.
please follow the logic.
NCBG was originally a grass roots organization that advocated the ORIGINAL promise of TIF expenditures. school and infrastructure improvement, public transportation improvements and community based initiatives that GAVE THE MONEY BACK TO the COMMUNITY in the form of those improvements. as we know now, this original promise has morphed into something QUITE DIFFERENT as in the devon/sheridan tif giveaways to loyola.
as we also know, change does not uccur overnight. NCBG is now in the "odd" position of lobbying the state, for more accountability and transparency for a program they originally advocated as advantageous to communities. these TIFS are becoming LESS and LESS advantageous to communities and MORE beneficial to private interests.NCBG is fielding complaints from communities like ours every single day, hence the "oversight" initiative. read their website.
the overall education benefit of attending a meeting with an NCBG representative is to educate those who need more information about how TIFS work or don't work because not everyone understands TIFS as well as you.
but more importantly, and this cannot be stressed enough, to add Rogers Park official voice to the growing discontent about how TIFS ARE NOT doing what the original plan set out to accomplish. we need to understand how to support NCBG's "oversight " initiative and possibly the seeds of change will start to take hold, which leads us back to your point.
education and organization are the key ingredients and that's why the Rogers Park Review is sponsoring this meeting for Rogers Park.
NCBG is asking the state, the same questions most of you are asking.i believe we need to support their effort.
pamela-
could you email me please at RogersParkReview@hotmail.com? i have a simple question for you.
Gary and others -- I appreciate the point about the original good intentions of TIFs, and I admire the efforts of NCGB but I think they are fighting a losing battle. I believe that most subsidies (ethanol and sugar excepted) start out as noble efforts to rectify a perceived problem be it a market imbalance or a blighted community. The problem is that these problems (market forces, blighted community) are generally temporary but the subsidy programs permanent. Time and market forces tend to correct the problems irrespective of any subsidy program. Example: some years ago when oil was so cheap that oil cos. weren't doing new exploration, the U.S. government came up with a "subsidy" in the form of free drilling rights to encourage cos. to do more drilling so that there would not be shortages in the future. Fast forward 15 or so years and oil cos. are getting the equivalent of a $7 billion subsidy for drilling rights. Not even Congress can undo this. They put the program in place, oil cos. entered into it in good faith, you can't take it back after the fact. I don't blame the oil companies. They were made a legitimate business offer and took it. I blame politicians and those who think that central planning is the answer. It usually makes things worse.
If a neighborhood needs to improve schools, transportation, etc. then that community should lobby for funding for such through city (and/or state) budgets or outright tax increases. School broke = $ to fix it. Fine. Subsidies, however, will always (without exception) take on a life of their own, and almost never provide $ for the things they were intended to. Further, they are an invisible tax on the people and so it becomes impossible to say "lower taxes now that our schools are fixed" or whatever. By their very nature they will not be transparent. Truly, we must say no to them and work to unravel them. Think of them as a very bad investment. If your retirement $ is in a bad stock and it keeps losing money month after month, year after year, what do you do? Hold on and *hope* it will turn around or sell and cut your losses before you have nothing left at all?
pamela-
again, you and i are tracking on this TIF issue.
i like the "dog" stock analogy and as a former apprentice trader at a specialist option desk, i'm pretty familiar and active in rooting out the "dog' stocks simply by clicking the sell button.
as individual investors we have that control over our own investments. and as you point out, in the case of the invisible TIF taxation, it is now reached "subsidy" status and has become so entrenched and spawning a supporting cottage TIF industry, it is impossible for individuals to excercise that control.
what other options would you suggest to obtain your goal? ncgb is, to my knowledge, the only "official" spokesman working in this capacity.
What can voters do? We can demand of our elected officials, as they campaign and ask for our financial support and our votes that they will get neither (and this goes for all parties and their candidates because they are all just as guilty): 1) you must promise to reduce government waste; 2) you must promise to work to eliminate subsidies whether they are tax abatements, outright funding, or guaranteed loans for any business any place, any time, no exceptions. If you believe in supporting small business then work for increased budget for the SBA and like government offices that provide small business loans at low interest rates. And we must scream (even louder than Hugh) about campaign contributions from any business or organization (and non-profits are just as grabby for taxpayer dollars).
We can stop these invisible taxes that enrich the have's and do nothing for the truly in-need. It won't happen overnight, but if we keep yelling and withholding support from politicans who accede to the wishes of big business and large organizations be they the teacher's union or the Chamber of Commerce, we can make a difference. There have been any number of tax payer revolts in the U.S., many not as violent as the most memorable ones. If individual voters would put their partisan differences aside, just long enough to ban together and make the point to ALL politicians, we can make some inroads in reducing this government waste that hurts everyone of all races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientation. As I said to an arch conservative and arch liberal engaged in heated debate about Iraq "You guys have fallen for a Trojan Horse. As long as your energies are focused on foreign or social policy issues, politicians will continue to reach into your pockets ever more. This politician may take your money to fight wars; that politican may take your money for environmental issues but in all instances your freedom to make your own decisions will be limited by the decreasing dollars in your pocket.
Those who are truly in need of food, shelter, education are not served by any of the increasing subsidization of business or the social policy arguments that lead to votes for the wrong people. Take the Morse Streetscaping plan -- $4 million to make Morse look pretty which, in theory, is going to bring us nicer businesses (I doubt it but let's say it will). Those businesses will be paying into the SSA which will enrich DevCorp to do what, exactly? Buy more planters? Meanwhile, down the street an undereducated, ill-supported single mom is heard telling her 4 year old son "to get the fuck in the car" (quoted, exactly, from an exchange overheard on the 1600 block of Estes 3 days ago). We have taken $4 mil, our street is prettier. Ok. But what about that kid? He grows up to have a lot of anger and resentment toward women which puts him at risk for being a rapist. Morse continues to thrive (I doubt it, but let's keep saying it will happen) and that kid can't afford to live in RP any longer and so moves to Elgin, gets some young girl pregnant, and she becomes an undereducated, ill-supported single mom who swears at her kids. Congrats. We've effectively relocated the problem. I don't know about any of you guys but I am embarassed and ashamed to have even looked at those $4 mil plans.
This is why we must fight so hard, even if it feels like a Sisyphean task, to demand that our politicians quit coddling the middle and upper class and cut waste to provide necessary services (such as transportation, health care for the uninsured, support for the vulnerable). Otherwise, our pocketbooks continue to shrink, our freedoms are limited, and we just move the chess pieces around the board, not really solving any problems.
If business wants to come to RP we welcome them with open arms. But we don't fund them with more wasteful spending and building of bureacracies that siphon dollars. You must remember that government, unlike business, has no incentive to husband resources, operate efficiently, or maximize services because they can always reach out and tap the taxpayers for more money. It's time we smack their hands and tell them "no."
Pamela - thanks for providing that reminder that "it's the money, stupid".
I appreciate your arguments here - and I've seen these kinds of dynamics in action in my professional life in a minor way. Back in my past life, when I practiced visual art, I knew a few people who received individual government artists grants who used them to invest in NYC real estate - these were people who already had established careers, some quite famous, and were doing quite well in the private marketplace, thank you very much. They only applied for these grants for the prestige factor that would boost the marketing of their private sector careers - the money was incidental to them. When I mentioned to some artist friends (we were all just starting out and most had no money) that I thought this was deeply wrong they looked at me as if I had grown three heads. Such are the dynamics of entitlement ...
Other that those things you've already listed, I wanted to ask what other things might be on the "necessary list", in your opinion. Just trying to get a better grip on your thinking. Post here or we can continue offline. rogersparkreview@hotmail.com
Paradise -- I don't disagree with your comments but I was trying to make the point that if we want do-good programs that serve the needy, great; the rest should go. A few things, though:
1. Microloans, particularly to minorities, are working and they get paid back.
2. Social security is a rip off. It immensely benefitted people like my grandmother and great aunts but on the backs of my parent, me, and probably my nephews. It also disincentives people to save for themselves and disincentivizes families to care for their own. And, it's a rip off and I could get a better return on those dollars taken out of my paycheck than uncle sam. More nanny state nonsense. Aid programs to poor old people with no one to care for them? Ok. Socialized retirement savings? It's garbage.
Pamela,
Agree with your point about microloans. How do you feel about subsidized higher education loans?
I am betwixt and between on subsidized education of all kinds. On the one hand, an educated populace is clearly better for society and will do more for individuals. I love the idea of providing a means for all people to learn and for children to set a course for their lives. However, not everyone has the same capacity so the standardized nature of public education is problematic. My biggest complaint with public ed is that it's run by the teacher's union and they are first concerned with themselves (which is natural) and then the states which are most concerned with getting the most dollars, then the local school sytems, etc. In other words, our current system pretty much guarantees that the students are about 10th in line of concerns. I'd almost rather see education privitized and then have people get $x to spend on education where they see fit (with everyone getting the equivalent or more than what is being spend now -- and standardize the dollar amount across the U.S. with differences only in cost of living). This would have the effect of making schools more competitive and it would also force people to be more involved in decision-making about their education. Extend that to higher ed? Sure, why not. But to just give state institutions money? No. I think we're back at the same kinds of problems we have today with public education. Government institutions have no incentive to be competitive or to be cost-efficient. If you live in New Trier school district, you get a great education; if you live in RP, well, enough said.
eeek! I wasn't expecting the foray into K-12 public education funding...but I admire your willingness to wade right into the muck.
One follow up question. I postulate that competition between private higher educational institutions has no direct correlation with either educational quality or cost effective delivery. How does the presence of government subsidized funding for higher education loans come into play here?
Discuss...
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