Orland school districts expect $2.5 million from early closure of triangle TIF

Orland Park Elementary District 135 and High School District 230 are set to receive an additional $2.5 million over the next four years in tax revenue from the recently dissolved Main Street triangle tax increment financing district said Jeff Eagan, District 230 assistant superintendent of business services.

The $2.5 million is the estimated tax dollars the districts will receive from the properties within the TIF, which Eagan said includes an apartment complex located at 9750 Crescent Park Circle Orland Park.

Before the TIF was dissolved, the increase in property tax dollars each year went into the TIF fund rather than to school districts and other taxing bodies.

The Orland Park Village Board voted Oct. 20 to dissolve the TIF four years early and the school districts recently approved the measure, allowing them to begin receiving that tax revenue.

Eagan said the districts were supposed to receive annual reimbursements from the TIF fund to account for students who lived in the apartment complex, but said the village did not make those payments.

“These outstanding balances were growing, and the thought was, well, this is an opportunity to get access to earn a million dollars in tax revenue that could offset what had not been paid,” Eagan said about agreeing to dissolve the TIF early.

Eagan said District 230 requested reimbursements every September, including this past September, totalling $150,000 to $173,000 per year over the last three years for the ten District 230 students who lived in the TIF.

The districts will now start receiving their share of the money that was diverted to the TIF fund since its creation. This will go into the operations budget for District 230 instead of paying for any specific projects.

“It’s not like we have plans on what to do with that money,” Eagan said. “We’re almost kind of playing catch up a bit.”

But these funds will not be paid overnight. Eagan said the village estimated District 230 will receive about $250,000 per year, based on the tax rate multiplied against the value of the property located in the TIF.

District 135 officials did not respond to requests for comment on their share of the TIF money.

The school districts tax levies that already apply to properties within the district will now apply to the properties previously located within the TIF.

Eagan said the district is using the same levy strategy that it has used in the past and is proposing a 4.86% tax levy increase this year, which Eagan said is close to past requests, and will now apply to some properties that were in the TIF. He said the district expects to get 3.6% of that levy though, due to the tax cap.

Eagan said it hasn’t been just three years that these funds were not paid to the school districts. He said his predecessor was unsure of when the last time the district was reimbursed for students living in the TIF.

“I think the village, you know, would admit to this too, but the TIF wasn’t necessarily successful in terms of, it didn’t earn as much TIF dollars to fund the projects as much as they’d hoped it would,” Eagan said.

The reimbursements that couldn’t be generated by the TIF and paid to the districts strained the relationship between the village and school districts, Village Manager George Koczwara said last month.

He said that dissolving the TIF gives the village and school districts a fresh start to work cooperatively on this and other developments.

“We share the same constituencies, the village and the districts, so it’s in all of our best interests to maintain good relationships for the betterment of the community,” Koczwara said.

The TIF fund had a little over $4.45 million in fund balance as of December 2024, according to its last audit on the state comptroller’s website. The village spent almost $90,000 of TIF funding on a consultant in 2024, along with utility and legal services costs.

The development was designed to be situated around the Ninety7Fifty on the Park apartments, University of Chicago Medicine Center for Advanced Care, a parking garage and the 143rd Street Metra station.

awright@chicagotribune.com