Normal Mayor Chris Koos says if the McLean County Board does not act on an amendment to pause sales tax sharing that lasts at least a year, it would chill conversation among the town, city, and county over potential changes to an intergovernmental agreement.
He said the county board needs to have a public discussion on the proposed pause because the city and town have had public discussion and have acted.
“It’s hard for me to say what needs to be clarified right now because the county hasn’t taken it up to have a discussion on it. So, we’re not sure. We think the minimum one-year suspension of payments is the key issue, but again they have not had a discussion, nor have we heard back on what their disagreement with the agreement is,” Koos said on WGLT's Sound Ideas.
That agreement has 10 years left to run, and altering it requires unanimous approval by all three municipal entities.
"We're pretty resolute in the fact that we need at least a one-year suspension of funds because everything we've seen from the county in terms of their spending in the next year, there's cash on hand to do that now," said Koos.
The fund has about $20 million in it. The town and city have said they turn over a combined $400,000 per month in sales tax money to the county. The agreement calls for the county to use those funds to pay for jail expansion debt, new law and justice technology, and mental health programming.
Both municipalities direct a quarter of the 1% sales tax to the county.
The year's pause also would allow an audit to take place. All three entities have approved conducting an audit, but the county board's executive committee last month opted to not consider pausing the sales tax.
Town and city staff have been talking since late last year about reassessing the agreement that is midway through the 20-year term.
"We're not sure, the size of that chunk of money, where the interest dollars are. Where are they being spent? Because when you have that much money on hand there is some interest generated off of that," said Koos.
The county has noted it is going through a process to more clearly target how it spends the portion of the shared money on mental health services. Koos said that is not the only question the town and city have.
“We are equally trying to understand those three or four pots of money and what they are doing and what they are specifically doing. Are they going to services? Are they hiring staff? Is it the appropriate staff as laid out in the original agreement? We don’t know the answers to those questions,” said Koos.
And if the county does not act? Koos said the town and city will have to figure out what the next steps might be.
“It’s looking like we’re demanding [answers] and I feel we’re getting pushed to that somewhere, where it should be an agreement between the three parties,” he said.
Koos is the last mayor, city manager, and county board chair to weigh in on the issue on WGLT.
