“You’re the Pride and Joy of Illinois;
Chicago Bears, Bear Down!”
So what was one to expect when our Pride and Joy bought Arlington Park racetrack in 2023 with no plan as to if, when or how was going to be developed? This is a franchise so mired in mediocrity that its all-time passing record stood for 65 years before being broken in 2015 by Jay Cutler (of all people) and a 47% won-loss record in this century. They bought the property, then they hired a guy with a track record of getting stadiums built to make all the pieces fit together. But then he’s forced to play footsie with a Chicago Teachers’ Union shill rattling a tin cup, pretending that he wants to stay in Chicago when what he really wants to do is get the hell out of town, even if it means putting up a stadium on top of a slag heap in northwest Indiana. It’s so Bears.
Combine that with a state that has the highest property taxes in the country, $140 billion or so in pension debt, and a legislature run by a cabal of self-dealing cronyism that’s intent only on increasing its super-majority stranglehold and which will throw taxpayer money at any idea that it thinks will further those ambitions (CEJA, health insurance for illegals, etc.), and you end up with House Bill 910 (HFA #3).
HB 910 tries to do a little bit of everything for everybody, which means it really does nothing for anyone (except the Bears). Floor Amendment 3 pays lip service to the very property owners whose taxes are at risk if this dog’s breakfast of a bill is allowed to pass. The Powers That Be are once again taking everyone for chumps who are too dumb to see who’s really calling the shots here.
The centerpiece of the bill is a provision that allows the Bears or other “megaproject” developers to negotiate a “Payment in Lieu of Taxes”, (PILOT) agreement with local taxing bodies. A PILOT payment is required, generally equal to at least 10% of the pre-development property tax, though this floor is waived for projects exceeding $2 billion (which means that the Bears could strong-arm local taxing districts into accepting a lower percentage, however unlikely). Last year the Bears paid $3.6 million in real estate taxes on the Arlington Park property. You do the math.
The bill also purports to protect local control of megaprojects in two ways:
- It creates local review boards consisting of representatives from local units of government which intersect the boundaries of the megaproject to negotiate the PILOT payment before it can move forward.
- Requires a public impact analysis to be conducted every five years, which will create long-term transparency and accountability.
Several things to consider:
- Local control is all well and good in communities that can afford to hire the kind of professional help that can analyze both the current proposal and its downstream effects. It’s a different story for downstate communities that may not have those kinds of resources and are being confronted with a proposal that looks good but may be too good to be true.
- And what good is a five-year public impact analysis when the project is already up and running? Who really thinks that a school district or fire protection district will be able to force a redo on a bad deal once the project is in place? And remember we live in a state where the Powers That Be have no problem overriding local control when it suits their purpose.
There are three levels of developments that would qualify for megaproject status based on investment level:
- Projects with an investment of at least $100 million could lock in property tax payments for up to 25 years.
- A second tier, for investments of at least $500 million, would be eligible for a 30-year agreement, and
- A third tier, for investments of at least $1 billion (Da Bears) would allow a 40-year agreement.
Megaprojects would also qualify for a sales tax exemption on building materials under the state’s existing High Impact Business Program.
Another five years could be added to projects in each tier if the megaproject site requires environmental remediation (not including the remediation brought about by the type of football we’re used to seeing from the Bears).
There’s also a new provision that explicitly prohibits the use of the PILOT tool for data centers, which is smart given that we’re on the verge of a Butlerian Jihad if data center construction continues to drive up energy costs.
Lawmakers and local officials would not be allowed to accept free sports tickets from a team with a megaproject deal unless that same deal is offered to the public. There’s some hard-hitting ethics reform for you. Try not to laugh.
Floor Amendment 3 also tries to assuage lawmakers’ concerns about giving large developers property tax breaks while everybody else’s taxes go nowhere but up. The provision says that 50% of the receipts from the PILOT would go towards property tax relief. Of that, 60% would go to property tax rebates for residential homeowners in taxing districts with a megaproject and 40% would be deposited into the state’s existing property tax relief fund (which currently has no money). However, it was pointed out that the measure would simply lead to taxing bodies doubling their asks of the Bears and other prospective megaproject developers in order to be made whole, and the Bears certainly wouldn’t settle for that.
That didn’t stop the House cheerleading squad from trying to fire up the crowd with a rousing refrain:
“It is a direct property tax cut for every single homeowner in the state of Illinois,” said Rep. Dan Didech, (D-Buffalo Grove), who called it “a win, win, win, win!”
Not so fast. The Governor’s office (not the Illinois Policy Institute, not House Republicans nor any of the other usual suspects) but the Governor’s office shortly thereafter conducted an analysis which found that from a hypothetical $20 million PILOT payment made for a large industrial development, a typical Illinois homeowner would see only $1.29 in property tax relief.
According to a story on the WCBU’s website, the analysis was “conducted by Pritzker’s office and shared with legislators”. That’s news to those of us on the Republican side of the aisle, who have only smelled whiffs of it from outlets which must have gotten leaked copies from Democrat members.
According to the analysis, returns would shrink correspondingly for smaller developments, “resulting in negligible property tax relief for Illinoisans”.
“Negligible” is being generous; insulting is more like it. Millions for the Bears, a buck twenty-nine for the rest of us.
So now you see why I voted “NO” on this bill. If you’ve read this far, thank you. We’ll end this installment but be on the lookout for another post that explains the rest of this bill and why it matters so much to the people of McHenry County. Bear Down.