Sears Lays Off 100

CHICAGO (AP) – Sears laid off 100 workers at its headquarters outside of Chicago on Thursday, two months after the company got a hefty tax credit for dropping a threat to move its headquarters out of state.

Sears Deal in Limbo

The Illinois legislature adjourned Tuesday with no agreement on a tax-break package that includes Sears Holdings Corp., raising questions about the company’s future in Hoffman Estates.

Lawmakers to Vote on Sears Tax Breaks as Early as Tuesday

Sears officials have said they'll decide whether to leave Hoffman Estates by year's end.

District 300 'Strongly Opposes' Newest Sears Legislation

Legislators are expected to vote on the Sears tax package this week.

District 300 “strongly opposes” the amended Sears economic development area legislation that was filed Sunday because key provisions of the tentative agreement reached last week with Hoffman Estates and Sears have been changed. The school district, home to 21,000 students and the sixth largest in the state, said in a news release that these last-minute changes will “perpetuate the unfair tax shift from the village of Hoffman Estates onto D300 taxpayers for up to 15 more years.” Citing six primary concerns with the newly filed legislation, Superintendent Michael Bregy called the legislation a money grab for Hoffman Estates. "We were so close to feeling that democracy still had a home in Illinois, and now we're back to square one,” Bregy …

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District 300 Leaders to Return to Springfield

School District 300 leaders will be back in Springfield next week to keep momentum going against a bill that offers a 15-year tax break extension to Sears Holdings Corp., located within its taxing boundaries.

Cheat Sheet: A Guide to the District 300, Sears EDA Battle

Patch looks at who and what the key points are in the proposal to keep Sears in Illinois.

Updated Nov. 10 at 4 p.m. Lawmakers have just one more day left in the legislative veto session, and the fate of the Sears economic development area could be decided on any minute. The situation changes with every hour, so Patch put together a guide on the key points in the Sears EDA issue. Feel free to add suggested key players in the comments section below if you feel like we missed anything. Sears economic development area — In 1989, as a way to keep Sears in Illinois, lawmakers adopted a resolution that would provide massive tax breaks to the company to expand its national headquarters in Hoffman Estates. The area is located in the southeastern corner of District 300's taxing boundaries. The tax breaks for the Sears economic …

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Lawmakers Introduce New Sears Proposal

A decision on Amendment 2 of Senate Bill 397 could be reached as early as this week.

Lawmakers introduced a new proposal Monday that would provide incentives for Sears to remain in Illinois and a final decision on the matter could come as early as this week. The legislation, tied into tax breaks for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, would extend the Sears deal with Hoffman Estates an additional 15 years and would provide District 300 $89 million from 2013 to 2028, according to a press release from D300. If the current agreement were to be extended, the school district would receive only $43.5 million over the same time period. The new legislation does not include the job-creation credits the company wanted, but it does include a provision that would penalize Sears if the company leaves Illinois before 2018, according to an …

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D300 Proposes Compromise to Keep Sears in Illinois

The school district's plan asks that four parties chip in $2 million per year to keep Sears around.

District 300 has presented its own plan for keeping Sears in the state, which includes compromises from each of the four parties—D300, Hoffman Estates, the state of Illinois and Sears. Sen. Dan Kotowski, D-Park Ridge, who is the sponsor of the legislation, said he’s working on his own set of proposals that would keep Sears in Hoffman Estates and also send more money to District 300, according to an article in the Daily Herald. Details are still being worked out on Kotowski's plan. Sears is asking for a 15-year extension of the EDA to collect $125 million the company said it made in initial infrastructure investments. The company has threatened to move if Illinois doesn't come up with another set of tax breaks. Highlights from D300’s …

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What's Next for District 300 and the Sears EDA?

More than 1,000 D300 supporters lobbied en masse in Springfield Monday afternoon.

They've amassed more than 11,000 signatures on a petition. They've attended numerous Hoffman Estates village board meetings. They've rallied in Algonquin—and in Springfield. For most District 300 supporters, at this point, they are simply left to wait and see whether the Senate will cover Senate Bill 540 during the veto session that starts today or if they will postpone it until spring 2012. The district ultimately hopes Amendment 3 is removed from the legislation. On Monday, roughly 1,000 parents, students teachers and district supporters showed up to lobby in Springfield and get the attention of lawmakers before the Senate veto session starts. District 300 administrators have been hoping that during this session, the Senate will address …

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