McHenry County Blog

Accompanying the following press release from School District 300 was this email message:

If you haven’t already done so, please read the following urgent news release issued by Community Unit School District 300 this evening about the new legislation filed today (House Amendment 3 to Senate Bill 397) on the Sears EDA extension: http://www.d300.org/news/29860.

District 300 taxpayers have been subsidizing the move of Sears headquarters from Sears Tower in the Loop to Hoffman Estates for almost 23 years.

It is possible that some D300 community members will be protesting at/near Sears headquarters tomorrow and Tuesday (especially around 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., as drivers are going to/from

To be very clear, they are NOT protesting Sears.

But through phone calls and visits, they will be asking Sears leaders to put pressure on state legislators to file another amendment this week so the legislation will truly focus on helping Sears not Hoffman Estates.

D300 leaders will continue to be very visible (wearing red) at the State Capitol all week until a vote is taken on this bill.

D300 opposes “money grab” for Hoffman Estates in new EDA legislation

SPRINGFIELD – Legislation filed shortly before today’s legal deadline (3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 27) by Rep. John Bradley violates several key provisions of the tentative agreement that was reached last week to extend the Sears EDA.

These last-minute changes will perpetuate the unfair tax shift from the Village of Hoffman Estates onto D300 taxpayers for up to 15 more years.

Just last week, after tens of thousands of community members spent several weeks making calls, emails, petitions, protests, office visits, and official testimony to pressure state legislators to do the right thing, a fair and reasonable compromise seemed within reach.

D300 was finally invited to the negotiations table on November 16, and a compromise agreement appeared near completion.

Superintendent Michael Bregy said he was deeply saddened that changes to the tentative agreement have now forced the district to strongly oppose the new legislation.

He called the legislation a money grab for Hoffman Estates.

“The rug has once again been pulled out from under 21,000 students at the last minute,” Bregy said.

“We were so close to feeling that democracy still had a home in Illinois, and now we’re back to square one. The people’s voices are still being silenced.”

Today’s amended legislation, which also gives poorly funded incentives to CME Group, small businesses, and the working poor, is detailed here (House Amendment 3 of Senate Bill 397).

It has been assigned for consideration by the House Rules Committee.

Although no hearing date/time has been set for the Rules Committee, sources indicate the committee will consider the issue tomorrow (Monday, Nov. 28).

The General Assembly is expected to vote on the bill on Tuesday, November 29, during a special legislative session, although this vote may not occur until Wednesday.

D300 leaders are continuing to study today’s newly filed legislation. For now, here are the district’s six primary concerns:

The Chicago Tribune reported that Hoffman Estates was losing big money on the Sears Centre.

1. During negotiations, it was verbally agreed that Hoffman Estates should not be allowed to use any EDA taxes to operate the village-owned Sears Centre Arena or make bond payments on the Sears Centre Arena. (The village owes more than $50 million in bonds on the arena, which it acquired in 2009.) But in today’s newly filed legislation, it is still not clear whether Hoffman Estates would be legally allowed to make bond payments using EDA taxes. The legislation must be clarified to specifically prohibit this. “How can any public servant allow school property taxes to be used to make payments on a facility that hosts half-naked women for lingerie football?” Bregy said. “If this legislation is passed, it will set a dangerous precedent for school districts all across the state who will be forced to subsidize entertainment facilities. If Rosemont can’t use taxes to make bond payments on the Allstate Arena, why should Hoffman Estates be able to pay off the Sears Centre Arena using taxes? ”

2. The Village of Hoffman Estates will continue to get an unfair amount of D300 school property taxes. Hoffman Estates would be guaranteed $5 million a year to administrate the EDA, which is $1.7 million more than normal taxation would give the village. Most of that extra $1.7 million comes directly from D300 school property taxes. In other words, Hoffman Estates will get 150% of the municipal taxes it would normally get in a standard tax distribution process, while D300 will only get roughly 30% of what it would normally get. “Sears and the General Assembly should require Hoffman Estates to compromise,” Bregy said, “and to stop using our school funding as an unending revenue source for the village’s operating budget.”

3. During negotiations, state legislators gave Hoffman Estates two options: either its annual payment would be a flat amount, or it would be subject to increases and decreases in the property value (EAV) of the EDA property. But in today’s newly filed legislation, Hoffman Estates would get both. The village would not only get a guaranteed $5 million a year from the EDA, but it will also get a cut of any increase in the property value over the next 15 years.

4. The Village of Hoffman Estates wants the district to promise not to sue the village over past, present or future uses of EDA funds, and it also wants an additional $350,000 from the EDA (above and beyond its $5 million administration fee) to cover its legal bills if any community members decide to file a taxpayers’ lawsuit. Village leaders are very nervous about their use of the EDA taxes, as they spent an hour during negotiations on Nov. 16 begging the district not to sue the village. Sadly, today’s newly filed legislation would give D300 school property taxes to Hoffman Estates to cover its legal expenses if a D300 parent or any other private citizen sued the village about the EDA. “How ironic is it that our students would have to pay to defend the village for taking money from our students?” Bregy said.

5. During negotiations, it was verbally agreed that Sears would only be able to be repaid for its past loans to build its facility and develop the EDA property, which it has testified is about $125 million. But in the newly filed legislation, Sears could make claims for any additional loans that it gets during the next three years. This is especially negative for D300 because the legislation was supposed to make the EDA automatically end when Sears was repaid, which would have been roughly 10 to 12 years if the repayment was capped to $125 million as discussed. If the EDA goes a full 15 years due to more loans for Sears, D300 will miss out on $30-$50 million that an early exit from the EDA would have given the school system.

6. During negotiations, it was verbally agreed that the amount of Sears’ loans would be certified by an independent auditor. But in the newly filed legislation, no one from the outside would be able to verify the amount. It would instead by verified by Sears executives.

A press release from School District 300:

New Sears EDA legislation lacks accountability, transparency, and efficiency

SPRINGFIELD – District 300 leaders discovered this afternoon (Monday, Nov. 7) while at the State Capitol that poorly written legislation had been hastily filed earlier today to extend the Sears Economic Development Area (EDA) for another 15 years without requiring

• accountability,
• transparency or
• efficiency.

House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie filed Amendment 2 to Senate Bill 397 today.

This legislation is intended to provide incentives to Sears and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) to stay in Illinois.

However, a preliminary review by D300 officials today reveals massive waste in the distribution of tax dollars with no attempts to correct the current lack of oversight in the EDA.

“The bill filed today is horribly wasteful in reaching its goal of keeping Sears here, and it might as well be renamed the ‘Hoffman Estates EDA’ bill,” Superintendent Michael Bregy said.

“If the state wants to provide incentives specifically for Sears, that’s fine. But it’s definitely not fine to legalize the use of school property taxes to run an entertainment complex, such as the Sears Centre Arena. This legislation is an attempt to legalize something that is now considered a criminal act. If passed, it would set a horrible precedent for the fairness and transparency of the Illinois taxing system.”

Under proposed legislation by Democratic Party House Speaker Mike Madigan's top assistant, the failing Sears Centre will be subsidized by District 300 property taxpayers.

The biggest winner in the bill is the Village of Hoffman Estates, for these and other reasons:

The legislation will allow the Village to use EDA funds (i.e. school property taxes) to buy and operate publicly owned buildings in the EDA, including the village-owned Sears Centre Arena, despite strong objections by over 11,000 petitioners and D300 leaders.

If this part of the legislation is truly about the village fire station within the EDA, as Hoffman Estates has publicly claimed, then legislators should specifically prohibit the use of EDA funds to buy/operate the financially struggling Sears Centre Arena. By using school property taxes to float the Sears Centre Arena, the Village would be protected from having to ask its own taxpayers for a tax increase.

The legislation will give the Village an estimated $93 million over 15 years, which is even more than the $5 million per year the Village now receives to “manage/administrate” the EDA.

There will be fewer financial resources in District 300, if the Sears subsidy legislation on the table is enacted. Photo supplied by Distrit 300.

A majority of this $93 million will come from D300 school property taxes.

Furthermore, this is $45 million above and beyond what the Village would have gotten if it had received 100% of the village property taxes paid by the businesses within the EDA.

If Sears moves away at any point in the 15-year plan, the legislation will allow Hoffman Estates to continue receiving $5 million a year from the EDA, above and beyond the Village’s normal tax revenues.

The legislation will not require any outside (State Comptroller) audits of the EDA, such as are required of Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts.

There has never an audit specifically of the EDA since the EDA was established by the state in 1989. Hundreds of millions of EDA tax dollars have never been subjected to outside review, and this legislation would allow this lack of accountability to continue for another 15 years.

The legislation will not require any oversight by a Joint Review Board, such as is required of TIF district. A Joint Review Board is comprised of representatives from the affected taxing bodies.

Both in the current EDA and the newly filed legislation, the local taxing bodies have no voice and no seat at the table.

Superintendent Bregy said he was pleased to see that the legislation would penalize Sears if the company leaves Illinois before 2018.

“We support the portions of this new legislation that provide incentives directly to Sears and penalties if it moves its headquarters out of our school district,” Bregy said.

“That appears to be the one and only responsible portion of this otherwise appalling legislation.”

However, the district is concerned that the legislation does not specifically cap the amount of funds that Sears can take in from the EDA.

Sears had told lawmakers and D300 officials as recently as two weeks ago that its financial goal from the EDA legislation was to recoup $125 million in investments it had made in the EDA area.

D300′s cursory analysis of the newly filed bill is that Sears could receive up to $173 million.

D300 currently receives $2.9 million of the roughly $16 million in D300 school property taxes paid by the businesses within the EDA. At that rate, D300 would have received $43.5 million from 2013 to 2028.

The new legislation would give the district $89 million. However, we will lose $150 million in school property taxes – about half of which would appear to go directly to the Village of Hoffman Estates, and the other half to Sears, further illustrating the rampant waste in this legislation.

Under the new deal, Sears would receive both state tax credits and EDA funding as incentives to stay in Illinois.

Ironically, the CME portion of the deal doesn’t take Chicago Public School taxes to support the CME, while the Hoffman Estates/Sears portion relies heavily on D300 school property taxes.

Superintendent Bregy and other D300 community members are currently pushing legislators to rewrite the newly filed legislation.

Amendment 2 of Senate Bill 397 will be discussed by the House Revenue & Finance Committee on Tuesday morning. If the committee advances it to the full house on Tuesday , the Senate could take up the issue as early as Tuesday afternoon.

A final decision could come at any point this week.

The following are links to the legislation:

• http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/97/SB/09700SB0397ham002.htm
• http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/billstatus.asp?DocNum=0397&GAID=11&GA=97&DocTypeID=SB&LegID=55225&SessionID=84

Pam Althoff explained the Sears subsidy deal to Republican Precinct Committeemen.

At the McHenry Township Hall McHenry County Republican Central Committee meeting, State Senator Pam Althoff was asked what the Sears subsidy bill was going to do to/for School District 300.

She outlined three elements:

• District 300 will get twice as much money as it is getting now.
• A “claw back” provision will be included, that is, if Sears leaves Illinois, it will have to return subsidies provided.
• Hoffman Estates will still get 2$ of the TIF-like money for an administrative fee.

It appears that this large local school district will still bear the brunt of the burden of subsidizing Sears.

District 300 officials have argued that continuation of the Economic Development Authority will deprive it of $12 million a year.

In an email today, Althoff wrote, “District 300 will receive about 3 million more per year according to my sources.”

A press release from District 300:

The following is a statement from Superintendent Michael Bregy, speaking during a press conference at Senator Michael Noland’s Office in the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield (1 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 25):

“As you may know, Community Unit School District 300 is the sixth largest school district in the state of Illinois, with 21,000 students and 3,000 employees. We are based in Kane County in the far northwest suburbs of Chicago, but we include 15 different cities in 4 counties.

For nearly 23 years, Sears Corporate Holdings has been headquartered in our district, within the Village of Hoffman Estates.

The symbol of the Sears devlopment in Hoffman Estates.

During that time, more than $200 million in District 300 school property taxes has gone to support Sears and the Village of Hoffman Estates to develop an 800-acre property known as the Sears EDA, which stands for Economic Development Area.

We have no problem with that.

But we believe that 23 years has been long enough.

Conservative estimates are that we spend well over $7 million a year educating the children of the Sears employees, which means that we are heavily subsidizing their education.

And while we want Sears to stay in our district forever, it is no longer necessary or morally appropriate for school property taxes to continue footing nearly the entire bill to keep Sears here.

So for the last several years, D300 leaders have proactively sought meetings with state legislators and Hoffman Estates to ensure that the EDA expires next year as planned.

But ever since legislation was secretively proposed this spring to extend the EDA for another 15 years, we have been trying our sincere best to be included in the negotiations.

After 6 months of pleading to be included in a deal that would have such a huge impact on tens of thousands of District 300 students and taxpayers, late last week we were finally invited to the table by the sponsor of the Bill, Senator Dan Kotowski.  His legislative district includes the EDA property.  Senator Kotowski asked to meet with me and representatives from Sears Holdings Corporation to negotiate the terms of the proposed extension of the EDA.

The timing of this conversation on the eve of the Veto Session was critical.

Chicago Tribune October 19, 2011, editorial in support of the General Assembly's not forcing District 300 to bear all of the subsidy Sears demands to stay in Illinois.

Because as the Chicago Tribune stated in a recent editorial that supported our opposition to Amendment 3 of Senate Bill 540, it would be BACKWARDS to approve this legislation without first defining the terms.

This is what the leaders of Hoffman Estates want: to rush through the legislation, and then talk about the terms later.

This is unacceptable.

At this time, I would like to outline the terms of the D300 proposal, which I gave to Senator Kotowski last Friday and told him to distribute as he saw fit. 

To be very clear, the proposal Senator Kotowski recently mentioned to the press and his colleagues has never been shared with us. 

We have no idea if it is indeed a fair compromise. 

And COMPROMISE is truly what is needed here.

So far, the concept of “negotiations” has been framed as District 300 should be the only one that compromises.

The problem of how to keep Sears here in Illinois is a shared problem.

And therefore we should all share in the responsibility of solving the problem -  not just District 300.

We believe strongly that a fair and reasonable plan will require all four of the fiscal stakeholders to move off of their positions.

Those four parties are

• District 300,
• Sears,
• he Village of Hoffman Estates, and
• the State of Illinois.

District 300′s compromise proposal is extremely reasonable.

It allows the EDA to stay in place, but with some major structural changes.   A copy of this proposal is being shared today (Oct. 25) with the news media, as well as all of the Senators.  Our proposal includes 3 parts. (SCROLL DOWN TO SEE THE PROPOSAL, ATTACHED.) It is based on Sears’ stated goal of receiving $125 million from the EDA.

Part 1: KEEPING SEARS HERE IN ILLINOIS

• The legislation should name Sears and specifically require Sears – not “the developer” and not “the development” – to maintain 4,000 jobs in the EDA. Right now, Amendment 3 only requires the entire EDA property to maintain 4,000 jobs, which includes many other businesses besides Sears.
• If Sears moves away from Illinois, the EDA should automatically expire.

Part 2: INCREASE THE TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY OF THE EDA

• There has never been an audit specifically of the EDA funds in the past 20 years. We propose that an audit be required for the EDA, just like for traditional Tax Increment Financing Districts (TIFs).
• The audit should be overseen by a Joint Review Committee, which includes representatives of District 300, Hoffman Estates, and the other taxing bodies within the EDA like parks and libraries.

Part 3:  ENSURE SHARED FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR KEEPING SEARS

As I mentioned earlier, Sears recently told us that its financial goal for the EDA extension is to receive another $125 million.

We don’t know how they came up with that figure, but it is the basis of our proposal.

To get to that $125 million, we propose that each of the four parties -

• D300,
• Sears,
• Hoffman Estates, and
• the State -

contributes $2 million a year for the next 15 years.

• So for example, instead of D300 getting an additional $14 million a year in school property taxes from the EDA, we would only get $12 million additional. (Any money that D300 receives from the EDA should not be taken out of our state aid.)
• Instead of Hoffman Estates getting $5 million a year to manage the EDA, perhaps the village may only get $3 million.
• The State of Illinois would find a way to chip in $2 million a year.
• Sears would reduce its goal by $2 million a year. As soon as Sears reaches its overall goal of $125 million, the EDA would automatically expire.

In summary, we must all have skin in the game.”

MR. BREGY’S COMMENTS WERE IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWED BY THIS STATEMENT FROM DUNDEE-CROWN HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR KELSEY MOSS:

“Things cannot continue the way they are.  The expiration of the current EDA was a light at the end of the tunnel for our district, as we continued to cut jobs and programs.  We have cut $28 million in the last 10 years, $14 million of which was cut in the last 2 years.  We have sacrificed.  We cannot continue sacrificing.

$1,500 less is spent on ME per year than the state average per student.  This financial problem is tangible to us.  It is not “next quarter’s projections.”  It’s my daily environment!  It’s the teachers who haven’t received pay raises.  It’s the 40+ kids in my English class.  It’s the Board meetings in the spring that announce our teachers being laid off and programs being cut.  I have watched as my district was forced to pink-slip 363 teachers in order to remain fiscally responsible.  It’s those things that make this issue tangible to me.

As a student, the answer is clear that compromise is needed.  EVERYONE needs to give a little, meaning ALL parties, in order to protect education, jobs in the EDA, and jobs in our district.

This burden cannot and should not be carried by my teachers, my principals, my peers, and my SIBLINGS who will continue to go through this district.  But rather, this burden should be dealt with in a way that can be carried all parties as a true compromise.”

And the considerable article writing skills of District 300′s Allison Strupeck brings us the following account:

Algonquin Leads Way on EDA

The Algonquin Village Board from 2009.

The Village of Algonquin took a leadership role this week on the proposed extension of the Sears Economic Development Area (EDA) by passing a Resolution through its Committee of the Whole in support of District 300′s position on Senate Bill 540 Amendment 3.

The Resolution is slated for final approval at the regular Village Board meeting this Tuesday, October 4, which is the same night that the District 300 Board of Education will be passing its own Resolution opposing this state legislation. To read the Algonquin Resolution, please visit http://www.d300.org/document/28657.

“It’s clear that momentum is building against this legislation, which threatens to harm an entire generation of students,” said Michael Bregy, D300 Superintendent.

“If this is truly a state-level issue, then the entire state must collectively own the solution rather than forcing it onto the backs of the local community.”

Not only would the proposed legislation severely hurt the educational opportunities of future job holders, it may require additional layoffs of D300 staff and would continue to shift the tax burden from Sears Corporate Holdings and Hoffman Estates residents onto the taxpayers of D300.

Bregy added that he and the Board of Education want Sears Corporate Holdings to stay in Illinois while also ensuring that the children of Sears employees receive the best possible quality of education.

A 15-year extension of the EDA would divert another $217 million in school property taxes away from the schools.

The language of Senate Bill 540 Amendment 3, which the State Senate plans to vote on at the end of October, does not sufficiently tie corporate tax breaks to local job retention. The EDA is assigned to the property, not to Sears itself.

“If the legislature really wants to keep Sears jobs in the State of Illinois, an EDA is not the mechanism to achieve this goal,” Bregy said.

“In fact, an EDA extension could make it even easier for Sears to sell its property and move out of state.

“We believe strongly that alternative legislation to the Sears EDA can and should be developed, and we are pleased that the Algonquin leadership agrees with us.”

The Village of Hoffman Estates is trying to pull a fast one over District 300 taxpayers by extending the diversion of school tax revenues in the “tax everyone outside of the Sears Tax Increment Financing District,” while hiding information about how the money has been used for the last two decades.

Here is a press release from parents seeking information about the viability of the Sears Center:

Village of Hoffman Estates Anything But Transparent in Response to FOIAs Filed by D300 Taxpayers/Parents

ALGONQUIN/CARPENTERSVILLE – Four separate parent/taxpayers from Algonquin and Carpentersville were preliminarily denied access to documents responsive to FOIA requests filed last week with the Village of Hoffman Estates, related to the
establishment, administration and renewal of the Sears Economic Development Area  (EDA) currently pending in the State Senate.

“I filed my FOIAs because as a parent and taxpayer in District 300, I would like to know how the property tax dollars were spent by Sears and Hoffman Estates, Hoffman Estates in particular, over the past 21 years.” Kathleen Burley, a mother and taxpayer from Algonquin, said Friday after receiving notice that Hoffman Estates is delaying production of the documents she requested.

“There has been no oversight of Hoffman Estates’ administration of the Sears EDA since it’s establishment in the late 1980s early ‘90s. We have no way of knowing what the money was spent on and by whom.”

The statute establishing the EDA does not require yearly audits of EDA expenditures as is required of Tax Increment Financings (TIFs) in Illinois.

“The only oversight required in the original EDA legislation was the requirement that the developer and the municipality (Sears and Hoffman Estates respectively) file initial paperwork with the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) when the EDA was first established and later gave notice to effected taxing bodies, like CUSD 300, if material changes were to be made to the EDA.

The Sears EDA is the only one of its kind in the state.

In addition, language in legislation to extend the life of the EDA, filed last May at the request of Hoffman Estates, gives Hoffman broad new powers on what it can spend the EDA funds on for the next 15 years, including

“acquisition and operation” of “publicly-owned buildings”

which the women point out could very well include the struggling Sears Center which is now owned by Hoffman Estates.

This Sept. 2, 2010, Chicago Tribune article may be one source for the District 300 taxpayers' suspicion that the unique Tax Increment Financing District legislation contains more than Hoffman Estates is talking about, that it may really about forcing District 300 taxpayers to subsidize Sears Centre operating expenses.

“We have no way of knowing what Hoffman and Sears plans on doing with the EDA funds over the next 15 years,” said Missy Graf, a Carpentersville parent and member of D300’s newly formed Board Legislative Committee.

“Because no one in the legislature is demanding that they tell us what they intend to do with the fund before they divert hundreds of millions of tax dollars that should be going to D300 schools to Sears and Hoffman over the next 15 years.”

The jump page headline "Sears Centre fallout could hit taxpayers hard over 20 years," combined with the quoted language in the TIF extension bill would lead a rational person to grab their phone and call their state legislators in opposition to the proposed legislation.

Indeed, the new legislation seeks to do away with the few reporting requirements in existence when the original EDA was put in place.

“Why do they object to having to file minimal paperwork related to what is going to be done with the money over the next 15 years”? asks Leslie Russo, parent and taxpayer from Algonquin.

“Their attempt to write the very minimal reporting requirements out of the EDA legislation and their refusal to produce records that I requested relevant to the very same issues before the veto session in Springfield begins at the end of October, begs the question – what are they trying to hide?”

The women contend that the legislation pending in the senate (Senate Bill 540) that would extend the life of the EDA, should be pulled from the Senate until audits of past money spent and a report on what Sears and Hoffman intend on doing with
funds can be done and reviewed. They would also like to know, specifically, why Hoffman Estates needs the power to pay for and operate publicly-owned buildings with EDA funds when the only publically-owned property in the EDA at this time is the Sears Center.

“These are very serious questions that should be answered before they even consider extending the EDA,” contends Nancy Zettler, D300 parent, Taxpayer and Chair of Advance 300, a community group that supports the district.

“If the EDA is extended, hundreds of millions of property tax dollars will be diverted away from D300 schools to Hoffman Estates to use in almost any way they want.

“They spend thousands of dollars more per child per year in their schools than we do here, while they enjoy the use of the taxes that should go to our schools.

“They should have to report on how they intend on spending the money if the EDA is extended. The 21,000 kids in D300 shouldn’t have to sacrifice their futures to pay for Hoffman’s bad business decisions.”

For More Information Contact:

• Kathleen Burley at (847) 542 3272
• Missy Graf at (847) 426-6658
• Leslie Russo at (847) 458-1941
• Nancy Zettler at (847) 844-7993

A press release from School District 300:

D300 leaders in talks with Sears

District 300 leaders are working closely with officials from Sears and the Village of Hoffman Estates to prevent the extension of the Sears Economic Development Area (EDA).

This is what the Sears parking lot in Crystal Lake looked like at 3 PM on Monday.

Sears Corporate Holdings is located within D300 boundaries, near the intersection of Route 72 and Route 59.

The Sears property, and the surrounding Prairie Stone development, are part of an EDA that state officials approved in the early 1990s, which has meant the loss of tax revenues for D300 over the past 20 years.

While the Sears EDA won’t expire until 2013, Hoffman Estates officials introduced state legislation this February which would extend the tax break another 15 years.

D300 was not initially informed of this legislation.

When the district became aware of it, D300 leaders became involved in the talks, which may be ongoing for months or years.

If state leaders decide to approve this legislation, D300 would lose tax revenues from 2013 to 2028.

D300 leaders have spoken with state legislators about the Sears EDA issue for the past several years, proactively advocating that they allow the EDA to expire as planned in 2013.

D300 officials are now actively meeting with Sears executives to discuss the impact of the EDA over the past 20 years, as well as the potential future impact on our students.

“At this point, Sears officials indicated they were grateful to learn the specifics about our situation, and they have assured the district that they will find a way to resolve the situation with D300 students in mind,”

said D300 Chief Financial Officer Dr. Cheryl Crates. “We certainly very much appreciate this ongoing and open dialogue.”

However, D300 leaders will continue to monitor this situation very closely and actively pursue a positive resolution, which may take some time to achieve.

In the meantime, some D300 parents and community members have independently begun their own meetings to explore their options.

= = = = =
No word as to whether the phrase “corporate welfare” came up.

Fred and Delores Doederleinat at a Camp Algonquin Veterans Stand Down.

In 1989, I was standing next to State Rep. Delores Doederlein on the House floor the night that the Hoffman Estates Tax Increment Financing District for Sears was passed.

As the debate neared its end, she asked me if I though that her Dundee and Algonquin Township (and points west) constituents would want her to vote for the TIF bill.

Having represented the same area for eight years in the 19770′s, I told her I doubted it.

“That’s what I thought,” she said before voting against the bill.

The Daily Herald reports the benefit to Sears and its purchaser, the owners of K-Mart, got a $240 million subsidy.

That came out of the pockets of local taxpayers not in the TIF district. .

What a TIF district does is force everyone else located in tax districts covering the TIP district to subsidize the development of the enterprise or enterprises within the area.

District 300 map, blue for McHenry County, white for Kane County.

Think the Vulcan Lakes TIF district.

Everyone is McHenry County is subsidizing it, because all tax districts, including McHenry County, the McHenry County Conservation District and McHenry County College raise their taxes on us to make up for the loss along Route 14.

The biggest loser in the Sears TIF district is Carpentersville School District 300.

District 300′s Cheryl Crates discovered House Bill 3435, introduced by State Rep. Fred Crespo, who used to be on the Hoffman Estates Village Board.

The legislation would pull property tax dollars out of the pockets of taxpayers in Algonquin, Dundee, Hampshire and other townships into which District 300 and Elgin Community College snake for 15 more years.

The contemplated deal would allow the failing firm to cut its local workforce by one-third.

Hoffman Estates will also be on the hook for about $60 of the $180 million which it borrowed.

Needless to say, Hoffman Estates politicians would rather have District 300 taxpayers share the pain of its faulty projections 20 years ago.

Already Crates estimates that District 300 has lost $195 million in tax revenue.  District 300 received $30 million during that time period.

This is not the only local example of Sears wanting a public subsidy.

Spring Hill Mall was built by a subsidiary of Sears called Homart.

Instead of building in Downtown Elgin, the Hill Nursery property was selected.  It was at the intersection of two two-lane state highways.

Homart would not even pay for adding the needed extra lanes next to its property.

Oh, it fronted the money, but cut a deal with at least Carpentersville to give the firm the extra sales taxes for ten years to repay Homart for the extra lane.

And, did Sears pay for doubling the size of Route 31 from Elgin to the shopping center?

The McHenry County Board’s Law and Justice Committee gave unanimous approval to Hoffman Estates’ Emergency Management Agency Director David Christensen to assume the post in McHenry County.

Current Emergency Management Agency Director Barry Valentine and his apparent replacement David Christensen were conversing in the hall outside the committee room after Christensen's approval.

The Round Lake resident will take over the position that Barry Valentine has been handling for the last thirty-two years.

Thursday, Christensen is scheduled to appear before the Finance and Audit Committee for similar approval.

When he learned he had made the cut, Christensen apparently was at an international association meeting. He said that McHenry County’s Emergency Management Agency’s reputation was such that several in attendance were impressed with his new job.

Committee Chairman Nick Provenzano, who was on the interview committee, said he hoped future efforts would be made to train volunteers to assist neighbors when emergency response personnel were unavailable.