By: Diane Benjamin
This information is from the budget: https://normal.org/DocumentCenter/View/14883/2019-2024
I don’t know why the budgeted revenue was decreased for this year, but Normal still plans to collect a lot of money for licenses, fines, fees, and permits. Maybe it’s down because little development is happening creating a need for permits. PDF page 27.
This is more interesting – see PDF page 32:
The above shows projected revenue and expenses for the Uptown TIF for 5 years.
Note Revenue and Expenses are the same.
Now refer back to the debt story from earlier today: https://blnnews.com/2020/01/02/normals-debt-3/
This bond chart was included:
The majority of the bond debt is from Uptown.
The budget claims Uptown will generate $2,367,125.
The bond payment for 2020 is $5,681,882.
That is a shortage of $3,314,757.
The TIF is NOT paying for itself
Guess where that money comes from?
You of course via the General fund. I remember asking Jason Chambers years ago when he was still on the Council how the debt was going to be paid. He told me it’s all paid for. Is that what the Council thinks now? If YES, they are uniformed!
Hotel/Motel and Food/Beverage taxes are not included in the TIF Revenue (according to the TIF reports). Of course the first floor of 1 Uptown Circle is still empty and generating no revenue. According to PDF Page 39, all hotel/motels generate tax revenue of $1,039,907 a year. ALL sources of Food/Beverage taxes generate a little over 3 million. How much is just from Uptown businesses isn’t known.
PDF page 25:
They forgot to add the property tax revenue doesn’t cover the payments.
PDF page 32 shows the other 4 TIFs too. None show a surplus at the end of each year.
We’re being fleeced and lied to. Koos and the council (not Stan) are liars and do not tell the truth. They pretend there is no debt, or that it will be paid down. I can’t recall what Koos called it, but I remember him defending the “debt” as though it was good and necessary. “You have to spend money to make money,” or something along those lines.
So, let’s see, for 2020, the Uptown TIF will generate $2,367,125 in revenue on a bond payment (expense) of $5,681,882. That means that revenue covers only about 42% of the expense. So, Normal taxpayers will need to cover the other 58%. Wow! Breathtaking. Does anyone really believe Uptown is a success? (Spare me, the “it looks better than it did” retort. Even if that were true, it sure doesn’t look $100 million+ better.) Has anyone ever read an article in the local media analyzing any of the TIFs in Normal or Bloomington?
Keep in mind they are only paying interest on many of the bonds