By: Diane Benjamin
Normal reported the same credit ratings in their financial statements that I reported in this story: https://blnnews.com/2019/12/07/moodys-normal-doesnt-have-a-aaa-credit-rating/
PDF page 33: https://normal.org/DocumentCenter/View/15625/CAFR19-FINAL-DOC
What they failed to tell you is that Fitch is owned by a French company and is the smallest of the “Big Three” ratings companies. https://www.sapling.com/7319147/sp-moodys-fitch-ratings
S&P doesn’t not have rating for either Bloomington or Normal. https://www.standardandpoors.com/en_US/web/guest/entity-browse
Moodys has never shown Normal with AAA credit rating.
Their on-line ratings go back to 2003.
We know property values are falling – especially with the higher end homes. I wonder if Moodys knows that? Maybe they know Normal has no problem raising property taxes to compensate. #History
I found this in the notes to the financial statements. Read it carefully – Total debt (without IEPA no interest loan) is $86,525,000. By the time this debt is paid off, interest will add another $41,193,178 for a total of $127,718,178 over the next 20 years. That is money that won’t be used to fix the roads or fund pensions.
PDF page 84:
Naturally Koos and his cronies want to cover up the truth. They don’t want the taxpayers to know what’s really going on.
It has been my idea that if each individual taxpayer had to personally hand over his tax dollars to whomever or whatever the recipient might be, our tax waste and Gov. fraud and frivolous spending would come to a screeching halt. It is just currently too easy to spend someone else’s tax dollars with careless abandon…..so “they” do!
Spot on! I recently had a conversation with my neighbor about property tax bills and if she knew how much we’re paying to Heartland Community College. This person had absolutely no idea that she was even being taxed by Heartland. I told her to look on her tax bill and see for herself. She told me that she pays her property taxes in escrow and never noticed! If people couldn’t pay their property taxes in escrow and if there were no payroll deductions and we had to write checks or transfer money to the taxing entities, you’re right, there would be an uprising.
Remember when Heartland said they didn’t need a campus?
You are exactly right. I have been trying to get people to understand debt of $87M means taxpayers have to cough up over $127M. Buying on credit is more expensive than saving to buy. The cost of buying money is rarely included in discussions.
The next question is how much economic activity must occur for government to come up with $127M. Much of the sales tax collected gets sent to the state. Of the 8.75% sales tax rate only 3.75% comes back to the town. Food, beverage and pot brings in more. So lets be liberal and say 6% on average comes back to the town. That is $2.1 Billion of future economic activity, just from Normal, which is already committed to pay current debt.
I am not sure how much gross sales occur up and down all of Veteran’s Parkway, but remember nearly all of the current debt was for just a few blocks in Uptown. I am certain Uptown has far less of a chance to generate $2.1 Billion of economic activity thank Veterans Parkway. Uptown looks nice, but it will not generate enough economic activity to pay for itself. It is not sustainable and puts a huge penalty on anyone who chooses to live or own property in Normal.
The current council don’t realize it, but they are literally forcing current and future residents to leave.
“Stop Taxing Our Children”: just for clarification, only half of the revenue generated up and down Veterans Parkway goes to Normal…North of Vernon and West of Veterans plus North of College is within Normal’s boundaries. East of Veterans, south of College is primarily within the boundaries of Bloomington. The remainder of your comments are on point.
This is the message Koos and Co is sending to taxpayers when they raise taxes behind our backs and take on more debt…
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I only approved this because it probably took a long time!
Maybe it’s a copy and paste….used so often, the shortcut would be necessary. LOLOL