Be practical on Bears tax expectations

In regards to the Bears Arlington Park development project, I was curious as to how much property tax money the Arlington Park complex has paid to school districts in the past few years. So, I submitted a FOIA to the Cook County treasurer for this information for the past five years. Within just a few days, they sent me the second installment tax bill (which contains total tax for each particular year). There are five separate properties that make up the Arlington Park properties, with each having a separate property tax bill. Each bill shows the amount paid to each school district, which included Harper College, HSD211, HSD214, and CCSD15. In each year the percentage of the total annual amount paid to these schools was very much the same: Harper 6.3%; HSD211 11.4%; HSD214 27.5%; CCSD15 54.7%. The total for all four districts by year is then: 2017 $2,174,066; 2018 $2,237,176; 2019 $2,066,538; 2020 $1,743,084; 2021 $1,801,774

Three of the four districts (HSD211, HSD214, CCSD15) have created a website to provide "factual information" about this development proposal. I sent them this information to determine if it correlates to the tax information that their records show and if there is any tax information I may have missed. So far I have not heard back from them so I will assume this tax information is accurate.

Using year 2018 as the comparison year, these districts received $2.3 million in property taxes from Arlington Park properties. The districts are now asking for $7.9 million (3.4 times as much) and the Bears offered $4.3 million. And currently this property is not generating any revenue. If this project moves forward, hopefully both sides can come to some kind of practical and realistic resolution.

Ken Hofrichter

Elk Grove Village