At Tuesday’s City-School Liaison Committee meeting, Economic Development Manager Paul Zalmezak said the City of Evanston could expand the boundaries and timetables for some of the city’s tax increment financing districts to raise money for the maintenance of several District 65 schools — and to pay off the new Foster School’s lease certificates.
TIF districts are a tool to invest property tax revenue into improvements in a defined area to spur economic development and property value growth. They work by freezing all taxable property values in their boundaries for 23 years after their creation, during which all new tax revenue from increasing property values is captured in a dedicated city fund separate from other…