Rep. Kam Buckner pushes back on Cook County study on Bears stadium tax deal: "Nothing from nothing leaves nothing"

A critic took issue this week with a Cook County Treasurer's office study that calls into question the economic cost-benefit analysis of the Illinois megaprojects bill designed to facilitate a new stadium for the Chicago Bears in Arlington Heights.

The bill, Illinois HB910, would lock in a fixed property tax rate for the Bears if they build the stadium.

The new study from the Cook County Treasurer's office underlines growing concerns about the impact the bill could have on the county's property tax base and overall fiscal health. The study estimates the bill will likely allow the Bears to save tens of millions of dollars in taxes every year, while not guaranteeing the taxes the team does pay will be enough to cover enhanced and needed services.

Illinois state Rep. Kam Buckner (D-Chicago) is one of the lead negotiators behind the megaprojects bill, and his district includes Soldier Field, where the Bears currently play. In a post on X, Buckner said he believes major development deals should be analyzed in a public forum.

"That's healthy. This isn't 1989 or 2001 where the real conversations happened behind closed doors and the public was left out," Buckner wrote, referring to deals for a new Chicago White Sox stadium and the renovation of Soldier Field for the Bears, respectively. "We should welcome scrutiny, debate, and transparency."

"With that said; This report is kind of magical," Buckner wrote. "They're doing field-of-dreams budgeting: 'If you kill the bill, the project will still come.' That's not analysis. That's fantasy accounting."

Buckner wrote that there is no alternative in which the problems the Treasurer's office is worried about are averted by the Bears paying full property taxes. The alternative to a state deal to facilitate the stadium, he wrote, is the stadium never being built.

You can't count full tax revenue from a project that doesn't exist, may never get financed, may get tied up in court, or may go to another state," he wrote. "The real choice is not 'full taxes versus reduced taxes.' The real choice is a negotiated payment on a real project, or full taxes on an empty lot. Nothing from nothing leaves nothing."

Hammond, Indiana, is also courting a new Bears stadium, and the Bears are considering both options.

Contrary to Buckner, the study argues it is unlikely that the land on which the Bears would like to build a stadium — located in a prime northwest suburban location on the former site of a premier horse racing track — would simply go undeveloped if a stadium ultimately does not get built there.

"Stadium supporters have suggested that Arlington Heights and Illinois are faced with the stark choice of having 'a word-class stadium, or nothing,' which assumes that 326 acres of undeveloped land in a community with a median income of $117,000, at a location adjacent to major highways and a Metra commuter train stop, would remain vacant unless a stadium is built there," the study says on page 12.

Buckner also questioned why the Cook County Treasurer's office is taking aim specifically at the Bears stadium plan.

"If the Treasurer's office believes its role is to produce independent fiscal analysis of major economic development deals, then great, but where are the other reports?" he wrote "Any reports or warnings on the last Soldier Field renovation? The last Comiskey renovation? Lincoln Yards, Fulton Market property value escalation, data center incentives, The 78, Bally's casino, United Center expansion?"

In its analysis, the Treasurer's office explained that the megaprojects bill would allow megaproject developers to freeze property tax assessments for 25 to 45 years. Rather than paying higher property tax bills that would come with rising assessments, developers such as the Bears would be allowed to negotiate long-term Payments in Lieu of Taxes, or PILOT, with local taxing bodies.

Assuming the Bears make a $10 million annual payment in lieu of taxes on top of the approximately $4 million in property taxes they are already paying on the Arlington Heights site where they plan to build, the Bears would save $39 million a year — or $1.5 billion across the 40-year life of the deal, Cook County Treasurer's office researcher Hal Dardick said on CBS News Chicago on Tuesday.

Dardick said the question becomes whether that $14 million total bill for the Bears stadium would be enough to support education, police and fire services and inspections, and everything else that the municipal government in Arlington Heights requires.

A related question that remains open, Dardick said, is if the Bears' payments to cover additional municipal services in Arlington Heights come up short, will everyday taxpayers have to pick up the difference and pay more?

Illinois Gov JB Pritzker has said he expects a megaprojects deal to be done before the end of the spring legislative session on May 31.