Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Beware of landowners asking inflated prices based on the expectation of billions in public subsidies in the form of upzoning, TIFs and taxpayer funded infrastructure. Mayor Emanuel is pushing for 1.5 Billion in TIFs. A parting gift for every landowner in every major redevelopment site in Chicago. And he wants them to be approved by the city council before the next mayor is elected. If approved developers will pay inflated prices for the land because they will get future property tax rebates from the city. This amounts to a direct transfer of $1.5B in tax dollars to existing property owners… Read more »