by Diane Benjamin

Last August I received information from the City of Bloomington under the Freedom of Information Act about the BCPA.  I wanted to know how much the 1/4% indefinite sales tax generated for them.  (http://blnnews.com/2013/08/19/bpca-14-sales-tax-you-pay/)

It’s strange the numbers just happen to be even amounts, but they can give a guide to how the schools districts think they are going to generate $16,000,000 with a 1% tax increase.  Below I took the 1/4% and multiplied it by 4 to get to a 1% increase.  This is only for the City of Bloomington, not the whole County, but isn’t Bloomington the hub of the County for generating sales taxes?  It’s bigger than all the other cities, some of which have no businesses generating sales taxes.  Even the 2013 receipts are a long way from $16,000,000.

I have two questions:

• Is the actual 1/4% generating more and the City just rounds the number for the BCPA?
• Why are estimates for 2014 lower than 2013?  Do they know something we don’t?

Is there a secret sales tax honey-hole somewhere in the county?  Or maybe somebody is a little overly optimistic think $16,000,000 is possible.

The survey taken that supposedly shows wide support for a tax increase must have been taken in Normal.  So far they haven’t cared much about all the other tax increases.  I haven’t heard anything about hoards of citizens descending on Council meetings, so they must approve.

The rest of us will have a different opinion.

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