McLean County

Town of Normal staff are signaling a potential need for significant rate increases in several programs including water and sewer, recycling, landscape waste and trash pickups. City Manager Pam Reece said a need for new sewage lift stations and cost recovery for hauling will require a council policy discussion.

In 2025, the actions of President Donald Trump’s second term saw significant cuts of various funding sources for McLean County programs. A new community advocacy group wants to document the totality of these cuts in their initiative known as The Documentation Project.

The session, titled Hidden Risks: Drug endangered children and family human trafficking training, is co-sponsored by Allies Against Trafficking and the Logan/Mason County and McLean County Recovery Oriented Systems of Care, also known as ROSC. It will take place Jan. 27 at the ISU Alumni Center.

A delay last year in finishing the external audit for McLean County government put grants at risk and further heightened periodic and recurring tensions. McLean County Board Chair Elizabeth Johnston said in a WGLT interview she thinks this year will go much better.

A federal grant in McLean County that provides community-based children’s services of welfare, mental health and schools has been terminated, effective immediately. The county is still determining how to fill a $500,000 funding gap.

An advisory committee that helps direct funding for mental health and public safety programs in McLean County is signaling support for two court programs that lost federal funding. But how they will be funded in the long term remains unclear.

Brightpoint runs two long-running programs in the McLean County court system. The nonprofit is about to run out of money for those programs after the federal government cut $150,000 in October.

Winter weather complicates an already scarce parking situation in Downtown Bloomington. The Market Street parking deck has closed. And the Front and Center block has yet to finish demolition and become surface parking. That’s likely to become available sometime next spring.

McLean County Board Chair Elizabeth Johnston said there's significant movement on mental health program spending in the county. That comes from sales tax money shared with the county by Bloomington and Normal.

SunVest’s plan calls for a solar energy generating site, as well as a battery energy storage system [BESS], at 2105 W. Oakland Avenue in Bloomington Township, and the area immediately east of Oakland Avenue, about a third of a mile north of Six Points Road.