TIF case against Winfield ends after state supreme court declines to hear school districts’ appeal

A long-running legal fight over a special taxing district in Winfield is coming to an end now that the state’s highest court has declined to intervene.

More than four and a half years ago, Winfield Elementary District 34 filed a lawsuit against the village. District 34, as well as fellow plaintiff West Chicago High School District 94, challenged the legality of the village’s creation of a tax increment financing district.

First, a DuPage County judge and then an appellate court ruled against the school districts in March 2025 and this past February, respectively. The Illinois Supreme Court rejected a petition for leave to appeal in May.

The village subsequently announced that its Town Center redevelopment plans can now proceed.

“We're finally at the point where we can move forward and do the wonderful things for the community that we have planned,” Village President Carl Sorgatz said.

District 34 said in a statement that it’s disappointed the state Supreme Court denied the petition.

Overall, Winfield 34 anticipates that approximately $20 million in tax dollars will be redirected from the district to the development of Town Center, according to the statement.

“This ends the TIF 2 legal journey,” the district stated in part, with the village “garnering full ability to redirect tax payer funds from other municipal governments to build” a village hall/police station complex.

The village released a statement calling the TIF 2 district a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” made possible by an agreement Winfield reached with Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital in 2020 to put the latter’s parking deck on the tax rolls for 20 years and to serve as a development partner for the village in Town Center.

“Millions of dollars generated from the parking deck are now unlocked,” from the TIF district, providing funding for new projects, the village said.

“TIF 2 was established to revitalize Town Center by supporting residential density, new businesses, public amenities, improved infrastructure, and new facilities for municipal government and police,” Sorgatz stated in a village message earlier this year.

In a TIF district, as redevelopment boosts property values, the extra tax revenue that otherwise would go to taxing bodies such as schools and parks can be used to pay for improvements within its boundaries.

TIF 2 consists of 51 parcels. Each of the parcels had been included in another, larger TIF district scheduled to expire in 2027.

“Alternatively, if the Village believed there was a need for extended TIF treatment beyond 23 years, it should have petitioned the General Assembly for a 12-year extension to TIF 1 and a legislative amendment, as the statute requires and has been done on more than 280 prior occasions,” attorneys for the school districts argued in an appellate brief.

Third District Appellate Justice Matthew Bertani delivered the opinion in favor of the village, with Justices Lance Peterson and John Anderson concurring.

“Some, not all, parcels were removed from TIF 1 and placed in TIF 2. TIF 1 still exists separate and apart from the parcels that are now in TIF 2. Thus, TIF 2 is an entirely new TIF district, not an improper extension of TIF 1,” the appellate court determined.

According to the opinion, the school districts also argued that the village created the new TIF district to obtain funds to build a village hall and that the “the underlying goal is inconsistent with the purpose of TIF creation — to facilitate development in an area where assistance is necessary.”

However, the school districts do not provide any authority to indicate that a secondary benefit for the village negates the creation of a TIF district, the appellate court said. The justices “therefore find this argument without merit.”

Winfield officials want to build a village hall and police station in a different location to open up additional space for development near the Metra station and a planned plaza.

“Finally, it will be able to accommodate, especially, the real needs of the police department, and of course provide a much more usable facility for both our employees and also for our residents, and … some additional security too, which in this day and age is very important,” Sorgatz said.

Plans for the Town Center apartment development call for 156 units — the “additional density that we feel we need to be more attractive to new businesses and restaurants,” Sorgatz said.