Cook County Clerk David called for a minimum six month moratorium on creating new TIF districts in the city yesterday, at least until Daley's term ends in May. “TIF Districts are supposed to generate economic development where it otherwise would not occur,” Orr told the Tribune. “They were not created to be a rainy day fund or a safety net when the economy went sour. Too often, Chicago’s policy has been to collect millions in a piggy bank and decide how to spend it later.” He said he hopes a comprehensive review of TIF districts can be done in the meantime. (The Reader's Ben Joravsky has the definitive breakdown of how TIFs work here.) more ›

Despite speculation that Mayor Daley's impending retirement from the position of Mayor for Life™ might lead to City Council meddling with his budget, it was instead approved by the City Council’s Budget Committee Monday. With only one amendment, restoring $3.5 million in funding cuts to local chambers of commerce and other neighborhood planning groups, the budget passed committee. A final vote on the budget by the entire council is set for November 17th. more ›

• The CHA has closed two of the remaining Cabrini-Green buildings, meaning just one remains open.
• Anita Kustok, the mother of Comcast SportsNet reporter Sarah Kustok and former Northwestern quarterback Zak Kustok as well as an elementary school teacher, was killed by a gunshot wound to the head.
• Jay Mariotti has pleaded no contest to one domestic violence charge while the other six were dropped.

The city faces a steep $650 million budget (which could reach $700 million by the time it's all said and done, according to Ald. Scott Waguespack) as it also faces a new mayor next year. The 2011 budget will be the parting gift that Mayor Daley leaves the new mayor, as well as a stack of any number of challenges. And if the Sun-Times Fran Speilman is to be believed, by "gift," we mean "pile of poop in a box." Rather than raise taxes or fees or make cuts to the city's budget, Mayor Daley will likely instead do what he's been doing: further depleting a series of "rainy day" funds and stockpiles of money, a "band-aid," according to Speilman. more ›

Below is more from my interview last week with 32nd Ward Alderman Scott Waguespack in which we touch on schools, unions, and more on the budget. more ›

A few weeks ago, when I first scheduled an interview with Ald. Waguespack, the notion was to get a bit of background about one of the leading candidates who was likely to step up and challenge Mayor Daley in next year's Mayoral Elections. But, just a few days before we were due to sit down, Daley turned the local political world on its ear with the announcement of his retirement. Suddenly, there's an abundance of candidates, some serious, others less so. With somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 people considering running, the field is more crowded and this, certainly, will have an effect on Ald. Waguespack's decision to run. Someone who's been outspoken against Daley in his term as alderman, Waugespack talked with me about his initial victory over the Machine in 2007 to win his ward, what he's done for the ward, and some of the challenges facing the City of Chicago as it heads into new territory under new leadership next spring. And, yes, about his mayoral aspirations. more ›

In his on-going efforts to plug Chicago's budget hole, Mayor Daley announced Wednesday that he'll be merging some city departments in an effort to save money. The General Services and Graphics departments will be consolidated, the Zoning Department and Department of Community Development will be merged, as will be the Department of Cultural Affairs and the Mayor's Office of Special Events. more ›

Mayor Daley, yesterday, in response to State Rep. John Fritchey's TIF legislation: more ›

Mayor Daley pushed back at State Representative John Fritchey's proposed TIF legislation in characteristic Daley fashion - full of bluster and accusation. “Everybody wants to raid something,” Daley told the Chicago News Cooperative. “I’m not going to listen to state government for financial advice. I’ll tell you one thing: The city of Chicago should not listen to the federal or state government for financial advice. We would be bankrupt today. We [should] not listen to them, your state senators or representatives. No way. Look what they’ve done with the state budget and now they’re telling us what to do with the city budget. No way.” Daley didn't limit his attacks to the general assembly, though. He took on (one of his favorite targets) the local news media, telling Dan Mihalopoulous that he wouldn't ask the Sun-Times or the Tribune for financial advice, either. Citing the Tribune's bankruptcy and layoffs of reporters, he pointed out to Mihalopoulous that he "worked there before and they let you go.” Mihalopoulous replied that he quit the Tribune and wasn't laid off. “Oh, didn’t they? OK, well, you were on the waiting list then.” more ›

On Sunday, State Representative John Fritchey announced that he was introducing legislation that would require unappropriated funds from Tax Increment Financing districts to be refunded to their original taxing bodies at the end of the fiscal year. Tax Increment Financing, or TIFs, freeze the amount of revenue that a taxing body, such as schools, parks, the county and other agencies can take from a district for 23 years. And revenue generated from a tax increase is diverted into a separate fund, which is operated by the city. A product of state law, TIFs were designed to fight blight in an area that might need an extra boost for development. As a result, those other taxing bodies wind up starved for cash while the TIF fund balloons into a pool of cash that is accounted for separately from the city budget. "If you take the numbers based on 2009, this program, this legislation would have resulted in $500 million going back to the Chicago Public Schools. That's enough to wipe out $370 million deficit plus a surplus," Fritchey told ACB7. more ›

The Daley Administration said on Friday that the city is staring down the barrel of a budget deficit of over $650 million. That deficit could mean a bleak picture for city services next year. CBS2 is reporting that one option on the table for balancing the budget is cutting the city's recycling program. Several aldermen told CBS2 that they were told mid-June that Streets and Sanitation is looking to privatize the city' recycling program in an effort to save $40 to $60 million in the budget. more ›

Oh my, we are screwed. As we mentioned earlier, Mayor Daley was slated to release the preliminary budget for 2011. It's out now and the news ain't good. Right now, the forecast is for a budget gap of $654 million dollars. Of course, while the city has used up almost all of the money from the controversial parking meter lease, there's still one source of cash that help close the gap but will remain untouched as long as Daley has his way: TIFs. From Fran Spielman at the Sun-Times: more ›

The recent economic crisis has exacerbated what was already becoming a huge problem for the city of Chicago: our municipal budget deficit. Barrels of ink and gigabytes of pixels have been published about both the shocking cuts and tax hikes needed and enacted to close the city's gaping budget hole; almost as much has been written about Daley's hoarding of tax dollars in the city's TIF program. And yesterday the Sun-Time's Fran Spielman ran a piece looking at the $2 million surplus the city had on hand after closing the books on 2009. According to Spielman, that number is significantly higher than the $200,000 the city had left at the end of 2008, but it's hardly enough shore up the half-billion dollar (and growing) budget deficit the city is caught up in this year. more ›

Michigan developer Village Green Companies got approval (finally) from the Chicago Community Development Commission for $34 million in TIF funding for a Loop apartment development in the beleaguered former Steuben Club Building. That's more than four times the funding initially approved in 2006, when the project was estimated to cost $79 million. Since then the project cost has escalated to $139 million. more ›

• A hearing date of March 10 has been set in the battle over Medill's Innocence Project and the involvement in the Anthony McKinney case.
• Indications are that the Supreme Court will rule in favor of black firefighters who have sued the City of Chicago.
• Bones were discovered at a Gold Coast construction site and authorities are trying to determine if they're human.

Perhaps doing an end run around community opposition to Wal-Mart's plans to expand into Chatham, Ald. Anthony Beale told Fran Spielman that he has the votes to bring Wal-Mart into the Pullman neighborhood. "I'm confident I have the votes. I'm floating around 34 or 35," Beale told the Sun-Times. The Chicago Plan Commission will vote on the matter in March, and the full council will vote in April. “We will be voting on a development — not just a store. It’s a bigger issue than just Wal-Mart. My site will create 4,000 permanent jobs, generate hundreds of millions in new revenue and keep union people working. It’ll create 1,200 homes and a dozen stores. In this climate, how can you vote against that?” more ›

Ben Joravsky and Mick Dumke of the Chicago Reader told us about the city's "shadow budget" earlier this fall. Last week, after filing FOIA requests, the pair finally got their hands on the document. And today they finally break it all down. more ›

• A CTA bus driver was injured last night when his bus got caught in the crossfire from a shoot-out; the driver's injuries were cuts caused by flying glass.
• The three teens charged in the beating death of Derrion Albert all pleaded not guilty at a hearing today.
• Shocker: Daley defends TIFs.

If you're one of the hundreds of thousands of people that will get stuck with a higher property tax bill this year, one of the things you may be wondering (besides 'why me?') is where that money goes, specifically. Thanks to a new search engine Cook County Clerk David Orr put up the other day, property owners in TIF districts can now see how much of their tax money is going into Mayor Daley's personal slush fund. Progress Illinois took it for a test drive, using Mayor Daley's permanent index number.

For fun, we plugged in Mayor Daley's PIN number (17-22-109-027-0000) and found that a whopping 92 percent of his property taxes were redirected into the Near South TIF last year. By contrast, cash-strapped schools are getting a mere 3.9 percent of the Daley's property tax dollars. This goes to show how much strain the TIF system are putting on those local taxing bodies entrusted to deliver education and other public services.

27th Ward Alderman Walter Burnett thinks he's found a way to fox up neighborhoods, put people back to work, and help some Chicagoans find affordable housing. Burnett would like to put the more than $1 billion in TIF funds that the city is holding into building affordable housing. "You build the houses, people work, people get affordable housing, people pay taxes, money comes back to the city," Burnett told CBS2. Currently only about four percent of TIF monies go to affordable housing in the city. He'd like to see that number closer to 20 percent. "We need to do our own stimulus package," says Burnett. more ›

The wheels of justice are still turning at Republic Windows and Doors, it seems. According to the Chicago Tribune, an official from the company was arrested yesterday in connection with looting the business last year. more ›

Here's a shock: there may be some financial shenanigans afoot dealing with the 2016 Olympics and TIFs. A few weeks ago, we took at a look at the city’s new TIF Sunshine website where you can see all of the city’s TIFs, what they’re for and where they’re boundaries are. Last winter, the city announced Michael Reese Hospital would be the future site of the Olympic Village should Chicago be awarded the 2016 Olympics. In June of this year, the City of Chicago bought Michael Reese hospital for $86 million and Mayor Daley later announced that a new TIF would be created to help finance some of those Olympic dreams. That didn’t quite gel; we thought the hospital was already located in the Bronzeville TIF. So we took a look at the TIF transparency website with Friend of Chicagoist Adam Verwymeren and, lo and behold, Michael Reese Hospital was already in the middle of that existing Bronzeville TIF. more ›

It's been quite a week for Mayor Daley's favorite change jar: TIFs. The city's new TIF sunshine ordinance went into effect on Saturday (the website that's supposed to list all of the information sucks, oddly enough), the mayor announced that the city will cough up $25 million to help relocated United Airlines into what used to be named the Sears Tower, and Chicago will create a TIF to help build the proposed Olympic Village. Whew! That's a lot of hot TIF action for only seven days. more ›

With all the doom and gloom about the city's 2010 budget, it seems the always-on-top-of-things Whet Moser of The Reader has zeroed in on a pretty easy solution: TIFs. more ›

Crain's Chicago Business is reporting that Michigan developer Villiage Green Companies is looking to the City of Chicago to help finance conversion of a 45 story vintage office building into apartments, after private financing fell through.

The failed financing is the latest trial for the ramshackle Gothic Revival office tower, which is well-known for its crumbling terra cotta facade and has made two trips to Bankruptcy Court this decade. Village Green, which wants to convert the building into 313 apartments, is pushing ahead despite the bad economy, betting that the downtown rental market will pull out of its slump by the time the project, called Randolph Tower City Apartments, is finished. more ›

• Wow, if you can't trust a fine city steward like Ald. Ed Burke to not be involved in shady dealings, who can you trust?
• This sounds like a plot from an episode of Rescue Me -- a 23rd Battalion Chief on the South Side is being investigated after he allegedly slept through a fire.
• And this sounds ripped from Nip/Tuck -- car dealer and ubiquitous TV ad presence Bob ROOOHRman is suing a plastic surgeon for "stealing" his wife. Life imitates FX.

Mayor Daley hopes to hold a face-to-face meeting today with leaders of the unions representing Chicago city workers in an effort to stave off proposed budget-cutting layoffs. The mayor has been trying to get city workers to accept 16 unpaid furlough days and forgo paid overtime in an effort to close a budget deficit that is projected to be around $400 million. more ›

While the city sits on a literal slush fund of $1.4 billion in TIF funds ($3.4 million of which they gave to London-based Willis Group Holdings Ltd to spruce up their new Sears Tower offices), City Hall is threatening layoffs if unionized city workers don't accept more cutbacks and unpaid furlough days. The city is facing a budget shortfall in the hundreds of millions of dollars this year. more ›

Block 37 is a black hole where money and plans go to die, and when you combine those forces with the CTA's money-guzzling abilities, well, it's the financial equivalent of a a shark riding on an elephant's back, just trampling and eating everything they see. Time to call City Hall for a bail-out. more ›

The City Council approved a plan Tuesday by Mayor Daley to put $25 million in TIF money toward making public schools handicapped-accessible. "Helping the handicapped ... is great. [But] every time I turn around, I see more TIF dollars being used for education. . . . It's going to leave these TIFs dry. When we have proposals in our communities, we're going to have a hard time finding dollars," Ald. Ray Suarez (31st) told the Sun Times. more ›