Trawling through the Reader document dump

10/22/2009 10:39 AM

By Micah Maidenberg
Editor

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From the Reader document dump.

It's a must read.
Investigative reporters Ben Jorvasky and Mick Dumke write about what they call the city's "shadow budget" in this week's Chicago Reader.
While the Mayor and aldermen face down a $520 million budget hole, a separate financial accounting circulates to city council members about the city's tax increment financing districts.
Dumke and Jorvasky write:

For the last several weeks, city planning officials have been sitting down with aldermen in closed-door meetings, offering peeks at portions of a citywide TIF budget marked "internal use only." The budget shows how the administration has spent millions of dollars in its 160 or so TIF districts in 2009 and how it wants to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more through 2011.
Administration officials don't and won't make this document publicly available. Of the 11 aldermen who spoke with us about their TIF meetings, none was allowed to see the entire TIF budget—they were shown the revenues and expenditures planned for their wards alone and asked to sign off.

The city downplayed the lists in a written response to the Reader. The city denied the newspaper's Freedom of Information Act Request.

"The designations are informal and used only for budgeting and planning purposes," Sullivan wrote. "There is nothing binding about the terms in this context; they are in fact determined by DCD TIF staff as a way to prioritize potential expenditures."

Three aldermen released their ward's TIF budget to the Reader: Ald. Scott Waguespeck (32nd), Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd) and Ald. Robert Fioretti (2nd).
I've starting trawling through Fioretti's 2nd Ward budget, tagging items. Readers know that the 2nd Ward's boundaries match up well with the Journal's traditional coverage area.
I plan to break out projects on the Web site a bit later; check this post for details.
Download a PDF of the 2nd, 22nd and 32nd Ward TIF budgets from the Reader by clicking here. And if any project jumps out at you, post a comment below or send me a note at mm@chicagojournal.com.
Dumke provides a key for the TIF lists. Each of the projects listed are categorized by one of four designations:

[B]udget items are categorized as “appropriated,” meaning the transaction has already been approved or finalized; “committed,” meaning it’s “locked in” or expected to be shortly; or “pending,” meaning it's been proposed. Under the project descriptions, “porting” means the designated funds would be moved into the account of a neighboring TIF district.





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