Missing TIF Money Reports Hang Question Marks Over The Town of Cicero, Residents Say
Illustration by Robin Carnilius
By Jorge Martinez
Community members pay taxes to develop and improve aspects of the town, such as building a new park or paying for a police force. Town projects and services require funding and that funding comes directly from property taxes. Since 2019, the Town of Cicero has raised over $64 million in property tax revenue all of which is reserved in Tax Increment Financing districts, according to the Cook County TIF viewer.
This is revenue that could go into other needs voiced by community members, such as more green spaces or financial assistance for damage caused by recent flooding.
Additionally, the Town of Cicero has not filed TIF reports for the past three fiscal years that show how this money is being spent, a move that is a legal violation of the Illinois Tax Increment Allocation Redevelopment Act and the Industrial Jobs Recovery Law. This move has left Cicero residents calling on the Town of Cicero for more transparency.
Cicero Independiente reached out to the Town of Cicero for comment but was not given a response.
TIFs are special zones created by towns, in this case the Town of Cicero. Any property taxes raised from the properties within that zone are saved and can only be reinvested into the same zone.
Cicero currently has five TIFs spread across the town. The largest TIF zone encompasses the eastern border with Chicago and mainly runs parallel to Cicero Avenue, with the second largest TIF zone encompassing the Cicero Business Park located near the Morton Freshman Center.
While each town has the right to regulate its TIFs as they see fit, they must follow certain requirements. The requirements include filing an annual publicly accessible report with the Illinois Comptroller for each TIF zone, giving detailed information on the progress of the TIF and how the revenue is being used.
Source: Office of the Illinois Comptroller
“There's a lot of question marks hanging over the present operation of the Cicero government,” said Tom Tresser, lead organizer of the TIF Illumination Project and public defender. “So, the fact that there's no TIF reports for the last two years is a huge warning sign.”
Since 2013, his group has continued to investigate the impacts of TIF across the country. In Illinois, the Illumination Project revealed 32 missing TIF reports across 9 Cook County municipalities, with Cicero accounting for the majority of the missing reports.
“TIFs have the power to corrupt,” said Tresser. “TIFs are all about power and rewarding power.”
With little to no public oversight, Tesser said he worries that the TIFs funds can easily be misused without the community’s attention.
Missing TIF reports
“[The Town of Cicero] have consistently communicated issues with identifying and contracting an auditor to perform the necessary [report],” said Abdon Pallasch, the director of communications for the Illinois Comptroller.
He confirmed that Cicero’s TIF reports for the fiscal years 2020, 2021 and 2022 are missing.
“Is it common practice for municipalities to not file TIF reports? It happens,” Pallasch said.”Is it a violation of Illinois law? Yes, it is.”
Pallasch said due to the pandemic, town officials have found it difficult to find certified auditors with other Illinois towns failing to file reports.
While fines are typically associated with delinquent TIF reports, this is at the discretion of the Office of the Comptroller. However, fines have generally been suspended due to the pandemic.
In extreme cases where a town is unresponsive, the comptroller may perform a “forced audit.” Pallasch said this is not the case with Cicero since “ they have been communicating and telling us they are trying to deal with this.”
The Town of Cicero has told the comptroller’s office that the TIF reports for FY 2020 will be filed by the end of July, according to Pallasch
As of now, no TIF reports are publicly available. The comptroller’s website displays the following message: “Sorry, but Cicero Town has not supplied its required documentation for the last three fiscal years. No data is available.”
Cicero’s lack of transparency
“[TIF reports] are a way to say you respect and trust community members,” said Cicero resident Leslie Cortez, an activist working alongside Tresser. Cortez is also a member of the local organization Cicero Community Farm.
In a spectrum of transparency ranging from full disclosure to vagueness, Cortez said, the Town of Cicero breaks all expectations since “there’s nothing from Cicero.”
This lack of transparency when it comes to TIFs is uncommon. The Illinois Comptroller’s website shows an excess amount of TIF information for Berwyn, Forest Park, and Oak Park.
TIF reports are essential to public accountability, given how TIFs have been misused and corrupted. According to the Chicago Reader article, TIF revenue is directed to bank accounts that are largely controlled at the discretion of a town's executive. In a city with a long history of corruption like Chicago, this became problematic under Mayor Rahm Emanuel
In February of this year, Tresser’s group filed a FOIA request with the Town of Cicero requesting the missing TIF reports to continue their project’s investigation. However, the Town responded by claiming no reports “could be located in the Town’s possession.”
You don’t need to have a Ph.D. in TIFs to understand the strange situation presented by the Town, Tressor said, since Latinx communities are historically excluded from the financial process.
Since Cicero’s first TIF was created in 1987, Cicero TIFs have removed a total of $326 million in property tax revenue to date. However, it still remains unclear where those funds go.
“We need a complete picture,” said Cortez.
*Leslie Cortez was a member of Cicero Independiente's volunteer end-of-the-year fundraising committee in 2022.
Jorge Martinez is a freelance community reporter and contributing reporter at Cicero Independiente.
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