Unfortunately, Illinois took two steps back in the transparency movement last week during veto session. The first occurred in a move to deny Illinois citizens the right to ask for government employee performance evaluations through a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request. Story on that here. The second occurred when the Senate failed to override Gov. [...]
Tag Archives: Transparency
Sunshine Standard
All interested in government transparency, check out this new site, sunshinestandard.org, created by Sunshine Review. The website aims to provide citizens and elected officials with model legislation and tools to launch reforms and expand the amount of information available about government. As Michael Barnhart of Sunshine Review explains, “State and local governments, and school districts, [...]
New TIF in the Loop
The city of Chicago has just approved 6 million dollars in tax increment financing (TIF) for Accretive Health Inc. “to pay for job training and the build-out costs” of a new facility, which will be located at 231 South LaSalle Street. By law, TIFs are intended to promote economic development in blighted areas, and this [...]
School Vendor Data Available on IllinoisOpenGov!
What is your school district spending money on? Check out some new spending data available on our spending transparency website, IllinoisOpenGov.org. We have included school vendor information for you to check out! We’ll also be updating current information (Payroll, Checks to Businesses & People, Retiree Data) soon, so keep a eye out for that too.
Check Out a New Paper on TIF Transparency!
Although tax increment financing (TIF) has been around for over thirty years, many people do not understand how it works, how it affects their communities or their pocketbooks. Most people have no idea a significant portion of their property taxes are flowing into the hands of real-estate developers instead of their schools, public libraries or [...]
Daley Proposes Dipping into TIF Reserves to Balance Budget
Mayor Daley went forward with his plans to use TIF reserves in order to “balance” his proposed FY2011 budget, leaving it to his future replacement to tackle the inherent problems that led the city into a deficit in the first place. Balancing the budget is important, but TIFs were not created to be used by [...]
Rahm on TIF
Not many people understand tax increment financing (TIF) very well, and the lack of transparency in the TIF process, particularly in Chicago, leaves many taxpayers unaware of exactly where TIF developments are located, how many tax dollars are going into these TIFs, and how the money is being spent. Mayoral candidates looking to fill Daley’s [...]