City's Preliminary 2011 Budget Gap: $654 Million

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Jul 30, 2010 6:40PM

Oh my, we are screwed. As we mentioned earlier, Mayor Daley was slated to release the preliminary budget for 2011. It's out now and the news ain't good. Right now, the forecast is for a budget gap of $654 million dollars. Of course, while the city has used up almost all of the money from the controversial parking meter lease, there's still one source of cash that could help close the gap but will remain untouched as long as Daley has his way: TIFs. From Fran Spielman at the Sun-Times:

Year-end audits, dislosed by the Sun-Times, show that Chicago’s 159 tax-increment financing districts had a collective balance of $1.2 billion on Dec. 31. Only $37.1 million of that amount is reserved. The rest remains uncommitted.

That’s something Mayor Daley so far has refused to do.

But [Ald. Pat] O’Connor (40th) said, “They’re pretty much open to everything right now. They’re willing to go almost anywhere, provided the City Council is willing to make those tough political choices.”

Not that it's so simple as to just shift the money around and plug the hole even if such a thing were possible. But TIF money could be used to shore up some of the city's budget and go a long way to aiding another financial crisis in desperate need of attention: Chicago Public Schools. Spielman continues:

Doing away with under-utilized TIF districts could require a change in state law. But, if the General Assembly went along, that could help solve the budget crisis in the city’s schools. More than half the money from the TIF districts would return to Board of Education; the city would get roughly 20 percent.

Think that's bad? Don't even get us started on the state's projected budget gap of $13 billion, the largest in the nation. Daley is due to present his finalized budget to the City Council in October which must pass the budget by December 31.