By: Diane Benjamin
I get delicious free water from a well. You folks in town have to pay for it. I bet you think your government priced that water according to what it cost them to bring it to your house. You might even be okay if they added a little to the price to make sure future water sources can be explored.
The joke is on you!
The same joke goes for what you are charged for sewers, storm water, and solid waste. Remember when garbage fees were raised because what you pay wasn’t covering the City’s cost?
Yep, another joke!
The City has been stealing money from all four of these funds for years!
The City stole $2.8 MILLION from the Water Fund in addition to what they budget to steal: https://blnnews.com/2017/02/23/still-confused-about-enterprise-funds/
Every budget includes what they are planning to steal. Below is the table of what they stole from each fund since 2012. REMEMBER – these are budgeted theft to make the budget balance. In other words, they are backdoor tax increases meant to fool you!
Since the proposed 2018 budget is on-line, how much are they planning to steal next?
Updated table:
Source: Page 358 http://www.cityblm.org/home/showdocument?id=12224
I assume Renner and Hales want you to celebrate they are stealing a little less in 2018.
Page 356 at the link above has this statement:
This theft obviously has nothing to do with services provided by other departments. The costs from “other” departments didn’t double from 2012 to 2017. Hales and Renner needed the money for the massive spending increases and stole some of it here!
The City steals money from Golf too. $123,417 in 2016, $139,359 in 2017, and $102,465 proposed in 2018. I hope all the golfers know they are paying more for golf because the City budgets to fleece you!
These numbers don’t total the $1,644,030 the City says they are taking. Either they can’t add, or there is another $175,003 theft somewhere else.
What happens when Renner and Hales do this?
Tax increases are so much easier! The Funds don’t balance!
From the November 2016 retreat minutes:
Page 7 http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=11756
The bottom of page 6 and the top of page 7 say SS is Sanitary Sewer and SW is Storm Water. CIP is the Comprehensive Improvement Plan. 
Crutcher is the new Retreat facilitator this year.
I wonder why they want to wait until April/May?
It can’t have anything to do with elections!
The question Renner, Hales, and the Council need to be asked: If the money hadn’t been stolen, would the fee increases be necessary?
I see another dedicated funding source coming for both. (Tax increases #1 and #2)
I’ve got one more joke for you!
This note is on page 356 of the budget:
Follow me here. The budget steals $315,766 by calling it “reimbursement”. Then the budget transfers $330,885 back to the same fund because the fund wouldn’t balance without it.
Expect tax increase #3 soon too.
Yep, elections matter!
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This shell game, which has been going on for years and frustrates the departments, is the reason the streets have not been able to be repaired. No money in the sewer fund–no money to repair sewers–no resurfacing streets until sewers are repaired. Round and round it goes–where it stops nobody knows.
Hopefully some new blood gets elected to the council and the mayors office. Time to rebuild some fiscal sanity for Bloomington taxpayers.