A recent Illinois Appellate Court opinion requires the village of Arlington Heights to pay the Cook County Treasurer $300,000 for refunds the county made to taxpayers during the lifetime of two special taxing districts in the village.
Robin Ward, an attorney and the in-house counsel for the village of Arlington Heights, said officials have decided not to petition the Illinois Supreme Court in the case, and will be processing payment to the county in connection with two tax increment financing districts.
The appellate court opinion requires the village to reimburse the county more than $276,000 for TIF District 1, and more than $23,000 for TIF District 2, both of which are located in the village’s downtown central business district, Ward said.
Officials are required to pay the county the $300,000 due to property tax appeals that were granted to property owners in two of the local TIF districts that were established in 1983 and 1986, Ward said.
Under state statute, public officials can establish a TIF district in an area that is blighted, or shows signs of becoming blighted, with the assumption that re-development in the neighborhood would not occur without the use of TIF funds, according to the village’s website.
In a TIF district, property taxes are frozen at a certain amount. All property taxes above that level – the “increment” – then go into an account that can be spent or borrowed against for certain development projects in the TIF district area.
According to the village’s website, during the 23-year tenures of TIF 1 and TIF 2, the village leveraged roughly $50 million in TIF funds to spark $200 million in private investment.
For example, the village says that TIF funds were used for construction of three public parking garages; streetscape and sidewalk beautification of all downtown streets; development of Harmony Park; construction of the train station; acquisition of the Metropolis Performing Arts Centre; loans and grants to renovate the older buildings in downtown; and new sewers and street pavement, among other improvements.
While the village’s two downtown TIF districts established in the 1980s expired in 2006 and 2009, Ward said it took the treasurer’s office three years to notify the village they needed to reimburse the county due to property tax appeals that were granted.
“We got a letter in 2012 telling us we owed money,” Ward said, adding that while the village appealed a decision in the 2013 lawsuit filed by the treasurer’s office that ruled in favor of the county, a Cook County Appellate Court opinion on Nov. 10 upheld the lower court’s decision.
The village does not need to tap into its general fund reserves, Ward said, as officials had set aside funds previously, in case a situation arose that required them to reimburse the treasurer’s office for refunds to taxpayers in the TIF districts, Ward said.
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