The City of Bloomington is receptive to stimulating childcare business creation and perhaps some form of subsidy to make daycare more affordable for working families.
City revenue projections may have been too rosy based on new national data that shows slowing economic growth.
And an unexpected $10 million left from last year's city budget is something of an illusion.
All that is from a Sound Ideas interview with Senior Deputy City Manager Billy Tyus.
Childcare
The city believes childcare accessibility and affordability are “critical” issues for the community, said Tyus.
“It's just as important as finding quality employees,” he said.
The four-county region of Illinois which includes McLean County saw 38 closures of childcare programs in the past two years, including seven larger centers, according to a report from Birth to Five Illinois Region 17. The latest is Milestones in Bloomington, which closes at the end of July.
The Bloomington Normal Economic Development Council [EDC] noted last year that childcare costs in many instances amount to more than a mortgage payment, and prices are among the most expensive in the state, including the Chicago suburbs. During public comment, Birth to Five Illinois Region 17 Council Manager Melissa Breeden emphasized the crisis at the council meeting Monday.
Tyus said the city has been involved in “significant conversations” about solutions for more than a year.
“...to find out if there are ways to help bring more providers online. That is something that our Community Impact and Enhancement Department is doing actively,” said Tyus.
As with the Bridge Project to help people who are homeless, the housing crisis and the downtown streetscape project, it takes time to move from problem to concepts to potential solutions to consensus. He said there are no items ready to take to the city council.
“It's an ever-shifting issue, in that as we get close in one area, you'll have a closure, or you'll have two closures. Sometimes it's two steps forward and one step back,” said Tyus. “When providers are closing for whatever reason, it makes it seem as though the problem is not getting addressed, but we're working to address it.”
He said the city may be open to subsidizing the marketplace in some fashion.
“It's everything from potentially providing financial assistance and creating programs to help with that, to partnering with private entities to do the same, to making sure that our rules and regulations on development for those that want to open new facilities are as easy and as streamlined as we can,” said Tyus.
In May 2025 and earlier, the EDC noted more than a year ago there are programs in other states that bundle state, local and family contributions and incentives to make childcare more affordable.
Tyus said the EDC is having those conversations at the state level and the city is not taking part in that piece of the issue that stretches across the nation, not just Bloomington Normal.
Additional sales tax revenue
Bloomington staff told city council members this week that $10 million in unanticipated money will be a one-time item because the city has built it into the budget going forward.
The extra dollars come from a change in Illinois law that requires out-of-state retailers to collect the city's 2.5% local sales tax in addition to the state's 6.25% portion of sales taxes. That brings online sales taxes more in line with what people buy when they shop in person.
Before the change, when those retailers only collected the state's 6.25% tax, the local portion was generally distributed as a use tax on a per-capita basis across Illinois communities. The per-capita split effectively shared some of the money from local resident purchases with other communities. The distribution now more accurately reflects where people bought things. The city also benefitted from a strong local economy, said Tyus.
Tyus said the $10 million was already spoken for.
“We entered last year planning for a significant deficit, almost $4 million. Almost half of it [the $10 million] is to help with that. The other thing was that there were some very critical priorities that had to be kicked down the road that we are now able to help to do,” said Tyus.
The city put nearly $1 million into the budget to help with neighborhood revitalization. The money can help with increases in health insurance costs. And the city was able to fund an additional road paver and crew,” said Tyus.
The U.S. economy slowed from a 2.1% growth rate in the first quarter to 1.5% in the second quarter. The war in Iran, energy markets and supply chains all contributed to inflation. Tyus acknowledged that will affect city revenue projections made to craft the budget in April.
“We believe that some of our projections may have been a little high, and the numbers are coming in a little lower. Going forward, there could be some inflationary increases. We're keeping an eye on it,” said Tyus.
He noted the city is early [3 months] in the budget year and there is time to adjust spending later if needed.
Data center
Three public commenters spoke to the city council about data centers on Monday. One said he thinks a data center development is a “done deal” and that the city simply isn't telling.
“As we have said, there have been interested parties who have approached us, as they have approached other entities in the community,” said Tyus. “But not specific proposals.”
He said the city needs the public’s help in deciding what the community wants to do on this issue.
Another commenter suggested Monday the city has been in talks with the electric utility Ameren about the infrastructure needed to power a data center.
Tyus said the city staff has talked with Ameren about a new power line that runs from the southeast side to the southwest side of the city. He said Ameren wanted that line for more general infrastructure reasons to improve service and the conversations were more than a year ago.
“It has been, as the data center conversation has ramped up, and as we have had inquiries, which we've made no secret about — what does this power line mean as it relates to that? It wasn't, hey, can you power this?” said Tyus.
He noted that infrastructure could also be used for a number of purposes including enhancing the capacity of a planned multi-modal business/industrial park on property owned by the Central Illinois Regional Airport.
