The City of Bloomington is nearly set to adopt its largest annual budget ever. City council members heard another presentation on the Fiscal Year 2025 budget at Monday's meeting.
The proposed budget is just over $331 million. That’s a 14% increase from the current budget.
Presenting the proposed budget was Finance Director Scott Rathbun, who said there are numerous reasons behind the budget’s size.
“It’s made up of inflation, public safety, we’re adding nine staff. We take a future look too when we’re doing the budget,” said Rathbun.
$43 million of the proposed budget would go into street and sidewalk work. $34.1 million would be dedicated to water/sewer/stormwater infrastructure. Overall, $88.5 million is planned for capital projects. Rathbun’s presentation listed the ultimate goal of the budget as being “good stewards of the taxpayer’s funds.”
Some of those capital projects include the Constitution Trail extension from Lafayette Street to Hamilton Road and technology upgrades at downtown parking garages.
A public hearing regarding the budget is set for March 25. It’s expected to be adopted April 8.
Fire and police presentations
The Bloomington Police and Fire departments each gave presentations as well at the council’s meeting. They were led by Police Chief Jamal Simington and Fire Chief Cory Matheny. The presentations focused on recapping statistics from 2023.
Matheny said the department fielded about 37 daily calls, which added up to 13,618 on the year.
Deputy City Manager Billy Tyus answered questions following Matheny’s presentation. He said the fire department experienced a surge in job applications.
“Back in October we recommended, and [the council] approved, the elimination of the requirement that an application coming in the door had to have a paramedic certification at the time of application,” said Tyus. “Immediately after that we started our first hiring round … we had 314 applicants.”
Tyus said a typical year prior would see around 50 applicants.
The Bloomington Police Department saw 18 new police officers join the force in 2023. Simington reported 30,844 calls received last year. That’s up 17% from 2022.
Simington noted a 6% drop in crime for the city, including zero gun homicides. He also acknowledged the acquisition of three new drones and the assigning of six new pilots for them.
Gleason's future
The city council went into closed session to discuss City Manager Tim Gleason’s contract. Gleason was named a finalist for a city administrator job last week in Florence, Arizona, and reportedly interviewed for that position on Friday.
Gleason declined to comment on the situation Monday night prior to the session. The council did not plan to comment following the closed session.
Gleason, who is under contract through March 2025, received a pay raise last September. It upped his pay to $220,000.
In other business, the council:
- Approved an agreement with Hutchison Engineering Inc. for Route 9 water main and lead service line design work.
- Authorized a construction agreement with Garneau Construction Inc. for the tuckpointing and sealing project. It’s $658,399.
- Approved a three-year agreement between the city and Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc. for software licensing and related services for the city’s Geographic Information System for $175,500.
