A leading Bloomington-Normal business group says it’s now endorsing the Unit 5 tax referendum, after staying neutral the last time it was on the ballot.
The CEO Council, which announced the endorsement this week, is a division of the McLean County Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber itself still has not taken a position on the referendum, although it's hosted member-education events dedicated to the issue.
CEO Council co-founder and past chair Andy Shirk from Beer Nuts said they’re a group of “impatient professionals” who want to accelerate progress in the community. They think public schools are a key part of workforce attraction, he said, and that quality of life is an economic driver.
“Our group of private-sector business leaders are generally not fans of things that can be considered a tax increase. But in this case, we saw it as a step – in a sense, a Band-Aid – toward getting Unit 5 on track financially,” Shirk said. “The long-term goal is a more stable financial picture day to day with a stable financial outlook knowing that growth is probably coming.”
It doesn’t make sense to accumulate more debt and cut programs when the district could instead “pay for it today and keep some programs," he said.
The tax referendum is arguably the biggest issue on the April 4 ballot, along with Unit 5 school board candidates and city and town councils. It’s aimed at addressing a multimillion-dollar budget deficit in McLean County’s largest school district. The district has already made budget cuts and has planned more, warning that they’re just the tip of the iceberg.
The referendum, if approved, would raise Unit 5’s key education fund tax rate, although the district says the overall tax rate would ultimately go down as other debt expires.
The CEO Council appears to be the most notable business group to endorse the referendum. The Chamber has been neutral. The Bloomington-Normal Economic Development Council has not taken a public position for or against.
The CEO Council was neutral in November too.
“We were a little bit reluctant to take a position on it,” Shirk said. “Out of conversation, it organically came up as, yeah, maybe it’s time that we gotta step up and speak up.”
Shirk acknowledged they may face a backlash for taking this position. The CEO Council published a letter to the editor in The Pantagraph this week.
“A lot of members of this group have found success because they took risks, so I don’t think there’s as big of an aversion to taking a position as there is for the average person in McLean County,” he said. “But we’re all struggling from a workforce standpoint of filling roles and having qualified workers. There’s a lot of economic growth and we want to continue to fuel it as well. A rising tide lifts all ships. We need to continue to invest in what works.”
Many other community leaders have endorsed the referendum too, including both Twin City mayors, the Bloomington and Normal Trades and Labor Assembly, the McLean County Democrats, and the League of Women Voters of McLean County. The McLean County Republican Party has been among the vocal opponents to the referendum, saying it opposes tax increases and that taxpayers are already hurting due to inflation.
