The City of Bloomington intends to set its 2025 property tax levy at $25.3 million, an increase of $3 million over the previous year.
The Bloomington City Council on Monday voted 7-2 in favor of the staff’s recommended tax levy estimate that is based on McLean County’s projected equalized assessed value of $2.7 billion. The pending tax levy reflects a rate of 0.98%.
“We realize that property taxes are certainly a burden. We do not want to put all of the stress on the taxpayers,” City Manager Jeff Jurgens said near the end of his lengthy presentation during the 70-minute regular council meeting. “We work really hard to be inventive and to try and be more lean and as efficient as a government as we can be.”
Bloomington had kept its levy flat at $22.3 million the last two years. In its memo to the council, city staff said that's made it harder to keep up with inflation and rising pension costs. Some vacant positions have remained unfilled and equipment purchases delayed to account for higher costs.
“The cost drivers that we’re seeing, it’s not just inflation there. It’s beyond inflation, some of the costs that we’re having to address,” said Jurgens.
While the tax levy supports a range of essential municipal services, including debt payments, public safety, parks and recreation, and pensions, the city’s general fund must still rely heavily on other revenue sources to fully pay for operations.
While noting the City of Bloomington accounts for 11% of residents’ property tax bill, Jurgens specifically pointed to increased obligations toward public safety pensions.
“Under our code, we pay for pensions by the property tax and by the utility tax. However, the pensions have gotten to a point where we now have to utilize money from the general fund,” he said. “So we have about $2.7 million going from the general fund for that pension.”
Jurgens said the new property tax would amount to the owner of a house valued at $200,000 paying about $6.60 more per month.
Participating remotely, council member Sheila Montney pressed finance director Scott Rathbun on the need for the increase.
“We have the opportunity as a community to find opportunities to continue to reduce costs so we don’t have to transfer that burden onto our residents,” said Montney, who was joined by Kent Lee in casting the dissenting votes.
The $3 million levy increase was the option recommended by staff among three possibilities. The other choices were to have a $4 million increase to $26.3 million for a rate of 0.98% for the operational adjustment plus pensions, or to maintain a flat rate of 0.9% that would result in a $1.76 million increase to $24.1 million.
“I am concerned what additional costs will cost us in the future. I don’t think this is a situation where we’ve got X-millions of dollars in a place that we just haven’t looked,” said council member Abby Scott. “If this was a situation where we could just be budgeting a little bit differently or estimating differently than all the cuts that were listed up there — with HR, with finance, with others of those things — would not be necessary
“Certainly, this is not an easy call, but I do not want to pay in the future for costs that we are saving today.”
A vote on the finalized tax levy amount is expected at the Dec. 15 city council meeting.
The council also voted 8-1 to approve a $7 million estimated tax levy for the Bloomington Public Library, with its tax rate dropping slightly to 0.26%. Lee voted in opposition.
“The library is very heavily dependent on property taxes, with 85% of our revenues from property taxes,” said library director Jeanne Hamilton, adding almost 60% of its expenses go toward wages and benefits.
The increase for the library’s property tax levy would come to about 29 cents per month for a home currently valued at $200,000.
Other business
In the only other item on the regular agenda, the council unanimously approved making the Special Committee for Safe Communities a permanent commission, following discussion at the Oct. 27 meeting where the commission presented its recommendations for reducing gun violence to improve community safety.
“Having this as a permanent commission, I think, is an excellent recommendation, given that it will be filled with people who are experts in the field and who can continue to help us not only make the recommendations come to fruition, but also to help us monitor and evaluate how we’re doing moving forward, rather than thinking that we can just sort of slap a band aid on something and say, ‘There, we’re done with it,’” said council member Mollie Ward.
Items approved as part of the consent agenda included:
- Spending about $323,000 on mowing equipment for the city-owned golf courses;
- Two separate budget adjustments totaling about $111,000 to pay for unforeseen work related to the 2024 general street resurfacing program;
- A $107,000 agreement with Baxter & Woodman for design work on Phase 5 of the East Street Basin project, as well as a $85,000 contract with the company for Phase 1 sanitary sewer hydraulic modeling;
- The annual regional service agreement with the McLean County Regional Planning Commission in the amount of $54,000;
- A $25,000 road use agreement with Washington Street Solar for Bloomington Heights Road;
- A collectively bargained Civilian Police Services contract with Laborers Local 362 for eight positions, with 3% pay increases effective May 1 in each of the next two years;
- Adopting the final plat of the 10th addition for The Grove on Kickapoo Creek; and
- Two appointments each to the Citizen’s Beautification Committee and the Cultural Commission.
