Cook County reeled in a record haul of revenue from property taxpayers in 2021.
A city report found that it collected a record $1.6 billion in tax increment financing districts for the year of 2021, according to the Illinois Answers Project. Of the nearly 450 TIF districts in Cook County, about a dozen — mostly in and around downtown Chicago — collected about half of the tally.
TIF districts allow the cities to freeze the property tax level in specific areas and divert all new tax growth to finance approved projects in the same area. The districts often last for 23 years.
Originally intended to spur development in struggling neighborhoods, the designated areas have drawn criticism for taking money that would have gone to school districts and other government agencies and using it to encourage new projects in already-popular neighborhoods.
The report reflects the critics’ concerns.
The city of Chicago collected 15 percent more from TIF districts than the previous year, whereas in the suburbs, TIF revenues fell by more than 13 percent. The city’s three largest districts collected more than $100 million more in 2021 than in 2020.
The RPM transit TIF, which was created in 2016 to help fund the CTA’s $2.1 billion Red Purple Modernization Plan, collected $190 million, the most in 2021. Transit TIFs are more limited than others. They don’t collect tax dollars that would otherwise go to public schools and they last longer, at 35 years.
The downtown LaSalle Central TIF collected the most among the non-transit districts in 2021, with about $175.5 million. Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the money collected will go toward creating 1,000 new residential units, including up to 300 in the affordable range.
Nearly half of the county’s TIF districts collected less than the previous year, mostly in the suburbs and on Chicago’s South Side. The 73rd/University district had the sharpest decline in collected revenue, raising about $73,000 in 2021, compared to the more than $660,000 in 2020.
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— Victoria Pruitt