Get Educated
D300 MUST Stop the Extension of the Sears EDA – Here’s Why!!!!
Back In The Day.
In 1989, in an effort to keep then “Sears Roebuck &
Company” in state, the State of Illinois gave Sears several
economic “incentives”. One of those incentives was a
property tax break program called an Economic Development Area,
or EDA, that was designed specifically for Sears.
Under the EDA, Sears and the Village of Hoffman Estates were
given the power to find, purchase and develop property within
the borders of Hoffman Estates for Sears’ use. This
venture was paid for by diverting property taxes otherwise going
to existing taxing bodies, including our district, Community
Unit School District 300, to a fund established and administered
by Hoffman Estates.
Out of that fund Hoffman purchased approximately 800 acres
of property just West of the corner of Rt. 59 and Rt. 90 and
gave it outright to Sears. Also out of that fund, Hoffman
reimbursed Sears for any monies it expended in developing the
property including building it’s 2.4 million sq. ft. corporate
headquarters.
In addition, Hoffman paid itself tens of millions of dollars to
“administer” the EDA and it’s fund.
There was no requirement in the original statute creating the
EDA that either Sears or Hoffman report to anyone on how the
fund was administered or what exactly was done with the diverted
tax dollars. There has never, to our knowledge, been an
audit required or completed by Hoffman Estates or anyone
responsible for administering the EDA. There, quite
simply, is no detailed public record of how the money was used,
on what and by whom.
The EDA’s Impact on The 21,000 Students of District 300.
Because of the
diversion of tax dollars to the EDA and away from D300, the tax
payers of D300 were forced on several occasions over the past 20
years to agree to raise their own property taxes to pay for
things that the diverted tax dollars would have paid for, like
schools, teachers, programs and textbooks. And while the
property became more and more valuable and Sears and Hoffman
realized more and more money to use however they wanted, D300
struggled to keep its head above water, while looking forward to
the day that the EDA would expire and fruits of our investment
in the development of the Sears property would be realized.
Year after
year the state is cutting back on what it pays us while
requiring us to do more and more with the money. This
requires that we cut back on programs and staff to pay for what
the state mandates, but will not pay for. To do that we
have to pull money from other, non-mandated areas. Year
after year it becomes harder and harder to pay for what is
needed to properly educate our kids.
What The Expiration Of The EDA Will Mean For D300’s Future.
If the EDA is
allowed to expire in 2013, the District will realize a minimum
of $14 million per year in increased revenue - our share of
payment of property taxes on the EDA properties.
Hoffman Estates’ Fight To Extend The EDA to Pay For Its Bad Business Decisions
The
Sears/Hoffman EDA is set to expire in 2013. Hoffman
Estates is in a full-court press to get the EDA extended for
another 15 years and we believe we know why.
On February
24, 2011, without notice to the District, a bill to extend the
EDA and to make some other very significant changes was filed in
the Illinois House by Rep. Fred Crespo. Rep. Crespo is a
former Hoffman Estates Village Trustee and now represents the
congressional district where Hoffman sits - District 44.
The Crespo
legislation, HB 3435, not only extended the EDA for another 15
years, it gave Hoffman the power to use money from the EDA to
construct, acquire and operate…”publicly-owned buildings” within
any “economic development project area.” This is a new and
telling power. Remember, this EDA started out as an empty
soybean field. There was nothing there until Sears and
Hoffman started developing the land. More on this later.
The district
found out about the bill in March and immediately objected to
it. Because of the district’s objection, it stalled in the
House Rules Committee and did not pass out of the House.
However, in
the meantime, Hoffman tried an end run from another angle.
On May 29, 2011, Rep. John Bradley from way down south Marion,
IL, tucked Crespo’s bill into another bill, Senate Bill 540, as
an amendment. The amendment is the exact same language as
the Crespo bill in the House, House Bill 3435.
Luckily, the
amendment was caught in the Senate’s Local Government Committee
by State Senator Pam Althoff and she prevented it from moving
out of the committee and onto the floor for a vote. Had she not
stopped the bill in committee, this would already be a done
deal.
Today the
amended SB 540 sits in the Assignments Committee awaiting the
veto session, which is scheduled to start on October 25, 2011.
Once that session starts it can be quickly moved out of
committee and to the floor for a concurrence vote. At this
time, there would be no required floor debate, just a vote.
We need to
keep the bill from going to the floor for a vote in the veto
session. WE ARE IN REAL DANGER OF LOSING THIS FIGHT UNLESS
WE PUSH BACK AND PUSH BACK HARD!
Uncovering Some Disturbing Facts!!!
The Village of Hoffman Estates Wants to Use Our Kids’ Futures to
Pay for Their Mistakes!
Over the past several months, we’ve been doing some good
old-fashioned research; finding as much evidence as we can to
piece together to explain why Hoffman Estates and Sears are so
dead set on insisting on an extension of the EDA. We’ve
looked at articles, old Hoffman Estates financials, relevant
legislation and anything else we could find about how the money
has been used and how it would be used in the future.
Based on what we have found and Hoffman Estate’s actions in
trying to keep information from the public, we believe that
Hoffman Estates is desperate to extend the EDA so that they can
use it to pay for the Sears Center and pay to operate it over
the next 15 years and here is why:
Hoffman
was recently forced to purchase the flailing Sears Center Arena
for somewhere in the area of $70 million dollars because it has
become a white elephant and its owners were ready to abandon the
property and walk away;
Hoffman has promised THEIR tax
payers that they would do whatever they could to not put the
burden of the failing Sears Center on them;
Suddenly Hoffman files legislation
to re-write the EDA statute to let them use the EDA to pay for
the Sears Center for them and to pay to operate it for the next
15 years – AT OUR EXPENSE! They have NO problem putting the burden of
their white elephant on us;
Hoffman has also written OUT of the
statute any requirement that they report to anyone about what
they plan on doing with the EDA or its fund if the EDA is
extended;
There is no description of why
Sears and Hoffman need an extension of the EDA for an additional
15 years or what they intend on doing with the additional money;
There is no explanation of why
Hoffman needs the power to “acquire and
operate…publically-owned” buildings written into the amended
statute;
There is
no explanation as to why Hoffman and Sears want to do away with
the few notice and reporting requirements that are in the
original EDA statute;
Over the
past 21 years Hoffman Estates has paid itself exorbitant amounts
of money to “administer” the EDA, without having to account to
anyone for what they were doing for the money;
There is
no publicly available audit of what exactly has been spent to
date in furtherance of the development promised by the EDA
agreement;
There
has been NO oversight, let alone meaningful oversight, of any
kind over the EDA and it’s administration since it’s
establishment back in the early ‘90s;
It is
clear that the EDA has been a free rein pot of money for Sears
and Hoffman to use however they’ve wanted to the past 21 years
and now it has to stop.
For a printer friendly version of this Get Educated page click Here.
For a printer friendly extended version of this page click Here.