By: Diane Benjamin
Government does not create prosperity. Government can only function on money it steals from citizens.
The pic below is from PDF page 194 of the Bloomington financial statements: http://www.cityblm.org/home/showdocument?id=20281
10 years ago 4 of the top 10 employers were government, in 2018 it is 5 of 10. The only government agency that did not increase employees was District 87. When government grows it also grows the money it steals. Your freedom to spend your hard-earned money where you choose to spend it has decreased. Note: All of the private sector employers have fewer employees than 10 years ago.
When half of the local economy’s biggest employers only exist on tax dollars, the only prosperity comes from redistribution of wealth. It’s your wealth being redistributed! Elections have consequences. “Right fit” is destroying prosperity for those paying the bills. April 6th voters need to do better, government employees vote to keep the gravy training rolling. If you don’t vote, they win.
And an important nugget of implication that is easy to overlook: District 87 maintained an equal number of employees, but their percentage of total employment went Up. That means there are fewer total jobs to be had! (Best guess is 1200, but somewhere between 200 and 1900.)
Time to vote in people who know ‘The Right Fit’ is pretty much any business that Creates Jobs, rather than only ones that fit in nicely with their fairy tale imaginings of what B-N should be…
As usual all true and great analysis. I would also add this when it comes to stealing money. One should look at how many people would be employed for the cost of non-working employees spiked pensions and penalties paid to allow these to exist. That would no doubt add even more virtual employees for the city/county and schools.
Have no fear BNAdvantage has everything under control….. here is their Facebook page where you can order Bumper stickers and signs with smiley faces stating how much you love Bloomington Normal – no this is not an onion article – it is unfortunately real. Your hard earned tax dollars at work? https://www.facebook.com/BNAdvantage/posts/2054828601204873
Bureaucrats!
Hahahahahaha! I’m embarrassed for them.
This is deeply troubling! As the population continues to decline, more government employees are added to the rolls to serve fewer people. Makes total sense. Government cannot create wealth because it first requires confiscating money from productive areas of society. (Got that, Koos and Renner?!) I’d like to add another element to the conversation. Note that State Farm accounts for 16.7% of total employment. This is a huge systemic risk for BN. Read any public company’s SEC Form 10-K. One of the biggest risks is having any single client account for more than 10% of your revenue. This community employer report is completely top heavy with an overreliance on State Farm, which continues to check out of engaging in anything local. On top of that, State Farm is relocating tech and/or high pay-high skill jobs, while replacing them with low-skills customer service and claims jobs. That 14,731 figure tells only part of the story. Also, State Farm is being disrupted and outmaneuvered by newer, more agile competitors. (I’m sure Lawrence has more on that.) All-in-all, this a huge cause for concern. But, of course, the naive people in local government continue to downplay any issues. Although the economy is spiraling down the drain, the key issues in local politics seem to be welcome ordinances, tobacco age restrictions, and the next white elephant. We’re doomed!
Yes… I have been sounding the alarm now for at least 3 years (maybe more). We have an area that is dependent on one company for the lion’s share of its economic activity. And that one company is a 20th Century inflexible giant which recently showed the world how shortsighted, backward and vulnerable they are to an assault by InsurTech companies like Lemonade. State Farm Attack Ad On Lemonade Backfires, Setting The Stage In Battle Of Old Vs. New https://www.forbes.com/sites/eyalbino/2018/10/22/state-farm-attack-ad-on-lemonade-backfires-setting-the-stage-in-battle-of-old-vs-new/#293409081eba
They are “in your face” sure that what they have done for 40 plus years is going to work in 2018 and beyond. They still believe that most people (and young people) want to spend time with an agent. Yes in the age of mobile phone apps and instant access to information and services, they still believe that their human agents are still viable. So using this as an example of their recalcitrant backward looking mindset and corporate attitude, their chances of surviving very long are pretty slim.
So our area needs new companies to come in. We need to encourage entrepreneurs and startups and provide a business friendly atmosphere here. As we have seen… we have leadership who focuses on retail businesses and are doing everything they can to tax and regulate businesses. This is an “all hands on deck” time for Bloomington-Normal. Unfortunately, our leadership is either asleep at the rudder or living in a world that only exists in their minds.
As I have said and written about before. This is the beginning of the end of Bloomington/Normal as we know it.
You make an excellent point. The report would be more telling if it broke this all down by income paid (adjusted for inflation) those counted employees and compared those numbers.
No doubt state farm would show even more of a percentage decline. Because when you get down to it….it’s only the money that counts. (Plus adding spiked pensions and public employee pay which generally has been increasing higher than the private….)
Turning IL into a 3rd world shithole to capture the electoral votes. Democratic Socialist ideals are in full swing and coming along as planned.
The great untold economic story of Bloomington/Normal is the collapse of the new home construction industry. In 2006 there were 1256 new homes built and sold in McLean County. This year we are on track to build less than 90 new homes. This has resulted in the loss of well over 3000 jobs and all the sales taxes, property taxes and fees that go with it. This was a devastating loss which has been completely unreported by the press.
New home construction is the proverbial canary in the coal mine and is one of the primary 4 metrics used by Moodys and other rating agencies to determine whether an area has slipped into recession. Blo-No entered perpetual recession in 2008 and on its current trajectory will never return to growth.
Wow! I hope you are mistaken in the decline in new constructions. 1166 less new homes being built should wake not only the City Governments up but also our County Government too. And you are right, why have we not seen this figure in black and white before now?
It is correct. Reporting truth isn’t popular
Good share, Erik! I wasn’t aware of this figure, though I’m not surprised. Great find! I agree with your analysis. On its current course, BN will not be able to rebound. The tax base is not diverse enough, there’s an overreliance on State Farm and the universities, and BN does not have a creative or entrepreneurial class from which new businesses will sprout. The next great tech company will not be started in BN. Based on the crowd we have in local politics, the response will be higher taxes/fees to try to make up the difference in tax receipts, bigger and thus more intrusive government, a growing anti-business climate and sentiment, and (of course) large government-funded pet projects. This will create a snowball effect on out-migration. So sad.
The estimated one-year impacts of building 100 single-family homes in a typical local area
include
$28.7 million in local income,
$3.6 million in taxes and other revenue for local governments, and
394 local jobs.
The additional, annually recurring impacts of building 100 single-family homes in a typical
local area include
$4.1 million in local income,
$1.0 million in taxes and other revenue for local governments, and
69 local jobs.
https://on3nj.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/natl-assoc-homebuilders-ecn-impact-of-home-bldg-in-local-area.pdf