The Tribune and Illinois Answers Project’s recent investigation into tax incentives and assessment reductions for data centers performed a public service by putting real numbers into an important debate. Tax policy should be transparent, and every incentive should be open to scrutiny.
But the investigation captures only one side of the ledger. As mayor of a community that has hosted data centers for more than 25 years, I also have seen what those investments produce: Substantial revenue for schools and local governments, private investment in aging industrial areas and family-sustaining union construction jobs.
Data centers in Elk Grove Village collectively generated approximately $60 million in property taxes for the 2025 tax year. Over the past year, they also generated $11.1 million in building permit fees, $4.5 million in electric utility tax revenue and more than $1 million in sales tax revenue. Some of those revenues are recurring and some are to construction, but all of them support real public needs.
The Tribune calculated that incentives on five Elk Grove Village data center complexes saved their owners about $14.5 million in 2025 and concluded that, without those property tax incentives, the average village homeowner’s property tax bill would have been roughly $33 lower — but that calculation is misleading.
The reporting would lead you to believe that Elk Grove Village residents are paying more because data centers are here. In actuality, the projects in question received the Cook County Class 6B property tax incentive, a temporary tax reduction designed to encourage new or substantially rehabilitated industrial development and the reoccupation of abandoned industrial property. Even with the temporary 6B property tax incentive, all of these data centers are generating significantly more property tax revenue than the industrial properties did before they became data centers.
The 6B incentive does not erase the additional tax base created by the development; it just temporarily reduces the amount of new property tax revenue collected during the temporary incentive period. And when the incentive expires after 12 years, that additional property tax revenue remains part of the village’s tax base for decades to come.
The 6B is a temporary form of tax relief that allows communities such as Elk Grove, located on the Cook County border, to compete with communities in neighboring counties where the taxes are lower. Elk Grove Village is home to the largest industrial park in North America, and we have decades of experience using the tax incentive to attract development, including data centers, that delivers a net benefit to the community.
Data centers pay millions of dollars to school districts without adding students to classrooms. They require inspections, infrastructure and public safety planning, much like any other development, but they do not create the daily traffic, school enrollment, or service demands associated with a large residential development, warehouse or office campus. That makes them unusually valuable contributors to the local tax base. Additionally, data centers are recession-proof businesses that will continue to produce revenue during periods of economic downturn.
The impact of data centers also reaches beyond property taxes. In 2024, when data center construction projects generated more than $3 million in permit fees, we returned that money directly to residents by sending a $200 Visa gift card to each of approximately 14,000 households. That was only possible because major data center investment generated revenue beyond what was needed to cover the village’s planned expenses during that fiscal year.
In fiscal year 2026, Elk Grove Village permitted approximately $1.2 billion in private-sector construction. Data center construction, expansion and interior buildouts were the primary contributors. That investment supports contractors, suppliers, skilled tradespeople and other businesses throughout the region. On average, more than 1,000 people are working on data center construction in Elk Grove Village on a given day, many in high-paying union careers.
Illinois should insist that data center developers pay the infrastructure costs they create, protect ratepayers and natural resources, use strong labor standards and deliver measurable community benefits. But we should not mistake accountability for hostility to investment.
That is why I welcome the work of the Coalition for Responsible Data Centers, which is bringing together municipal leaders, labor, businesses and community voices to pursue responsible, pro-growth policy. State leaders should listen to communities with real experience, not only abstract projections or worst-case assumptions.
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In Elk Grove Village, data centers are not theoretical. Neither are the revenue, jobs and investments they generate.
Craig B. Johnson is the mayor of Elk Grove Village.
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