When the Obama Foundation won approval to build the Obama Presidential Center on 19.3 acres of Chicago’s Jackson Park, it promised a $470 million reserve fund to protect taxpayers if the project failed.
But new tax filings show the foundation has deposited just $1 million into that endowment and has not made additional contributions in years, prompting critics to warn the shortfall could leave Chicagoans liable for hundreds of millions of dollars.
The endowment was a condition of the city agreement that transferred control of the parkland to the foundation as construction of the center proceeded. City officials and foundation representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment, Fox News reported.
“The foundation ultimately secured the public land for just $10 in 2018 under a 99-year deal,” said the outlet.
When former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama turned the first sod at the site in September 2021, the Obama Foundation had deposited just $1 million — roughly 0.21% of the $470 million reserve it pledged — into the required endowment, and that amount has not increased since, according to recent filings.
With construction proceeding slowly and project costs rising from an initial estimate of $330 million to at least $850 million, critics say the lack of progress on the endowment raises the prospect that Chicago taxpayers could be left responsible if the center’s finances sour, Fox reported.
The foundation’s most recent tax return also shows volatile year-to-year revenue, fundraising shortfalls and unfulfilled donor commitments, underscoring concerns about the project’s financial footing.
Illinois GOP Chair Kathy Salvi called the development an “abomination,” saying Democrats’ deal with the foundation risks exposing local taxpayers to large liabilities.
“It should come as no surprise that the Obama Center is potentially leaving Illinois taxpayers high and dry — it’s an Illinois Democrat tradition,” Salvi told Fox News Digital. “Democrats in this state, when not going to prison for corruption, treat taxpayers like a personal piggy bank giving sweetheart deals to their political benefactors.”
Richard Epstein, a University of Chicago law professor emeritus who also teaches at New York University, has long warned about the endowment and advised the local nonprofit Protect Our Parks in its legal efforts to block construction of the Obama Presidential Center.
Epstein says the foundation’s failure to fund the reserve vindicates his long-standing contention that the city should not have ceded the large swath of Jackson Park to the project, Fox reported.