McLean County Times

At the Dec. 12 meeting of the Bloomington City Council, council finalized the city and library property tax levies for 2022.

Finance director Scott Rathbun presented the final version of the levy to the board. He explained the city will have a $1.4 million increase which is actually a 0.17% decrease. The city has been using utility tax reserves to fund the police and fire pensions since 2019, but those funds will be depleted in 2023 so the increase of $1.4 million will be split evenly between police and fire to fund those pensions.

“But just as a reminder, this is roughly between the city and the library, depending on the school district that's attached to the city property tax bill,” Tim Gleason, the city manager, said. “We are 15 or 16% of the total property tax bill for the city portion. We are proposing that we maintain the property tax rate but capture the additional revenues generated by the growth in the community. So the number of units that are assessed and then also of those properties that were reassessed, the increased value. And for the city's portion, that's roughly $1.4 million that will be pledged and dedicated to paying down some of the pension obligation for both the police and the fire pensions.”

The council uploaded a livestream of its public meeting to the city’s YouTube channel.

The council also discussed approving bills and payroll totaling $14,700 that the Finance Department requested.

The library will have a net 0% change with a $168,000 increase in operations funding and $235,000 in debt services funds. The changes take into consideration inflation. The majority of the increase will go to paying for the recent bond used to fund the library renovation and expansion program. The first debt payment is slightly more than was estimated, so this will make up the difference.

While there was some public comment against the levy because of a perceived lack of funding for the first responder levies, some of the council members spoke to that, saying that they had a fair percentage of funding for those pensions compared to other municipalities and were doing their best to maintain necessary services without impacting residents too harshly. The council did pass the levy as presented.

The council will meet again at 6 p.m. on Jan. 9 at the government center board room on 115 East Washington St.