Pass the bill to keep Sears in the suburbs
The business world is complicated, so we can't lay the recent leveraging of Illinois businesses solely at the feet of last year's state tax increases.
A multiplicity of factors are at play, and to a great degree, it's simply the way business works. So much is based on bargaining positions.
Still, the January tax increase set the tone for the recent fallout, branded Illinois fairly or unfairly as a state that's bad for business at a time when a tough economy has increased the competition with surrounding states for business and jobs.
In recent weeks, Illinois has seemed buffeted by these competitive winds at every turn.
Motorola Mobility calmed nerves Friday in Lake County by saying the mobile phone maker is staying in Libertyville and, in fact, will invest heavily in new hires for research and development.
The decision wasn't by any means free, however. Gov. Pat Quinn showed up at the announcement to say the state is pouring $100 million in incentives into the deal.
No sooner had that end run been wrapped up, however, when word came out today in a front page Daily Herald report by Anna Marie Kukec and Ashok Selvam that Sears Roebuck and Co. is by no means committed to staying in Hoffman Estates.
A little more than two decades after Sears leveraged an offer from North Carolina into a $240 million multi-governmental deal to move its headquarters from the famous Loop tower to a sprawling campus in Hoffman Estates, the company is busy leveraging again.
It has commissioned a study to assess its economic impact on the region and entertained inquiries — no one knows how serious — from New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
Hoffman Estates Village President William McLeod is taking the matter — and the jobs at risk — seriously and is actively promoting legislation sponsored by state Rep. Fred Crespo of Hoffman Estates that would provide a 15-year extension of the property tax breaks that were part of the original Sears deal.
In exchange, Sears presumably would commit to keep a minimum of 4,000 jobs at the suburban location during those years.
The cost of that deal to the state would be almost nothing. Hardest hit would be Community Unit District 300, which normally would gain the most property taxes from the property. Still, District 300's bargaining position is limited; the business headquarters sends no students to District 300 that would drive up its expenses.
Whatever the case, leveraging these days is the way the game is played. The legislation seems like a reasonable approach to protect the jobs and economic benefits Sears provides. We endorse it.