By: Diane Benjamin
Since the April elections are close, your property taxes aren’t being raised! It appears part of the property tax revenue that normally goes to the General Fund is being diverted to pensions. In past years if pensions needed more money Normal would just charge you.
It should be alarming to Town leaders the Estimated EAV showed no growth for the year. That isn’t a sign of a thriving local economy. (Bloomington did show an increase)
PDF page 60: https://www.normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3820
The below shows the new distribution of your property taxes, the amount going to pensions had to be increased to compensate for market losses:
Too bad every year isn’t an election year!
(your property taxes wouldn’t be as high)
PDF page 61:
Unit 5 will sock it to property owners tho.
The community impact statement that claims they are sympathetic to taxpayers is laughable. This a pandering statement. Their actions show they could care less about taxpayers. During the pandemic, while we were prevented from working and receiving an income, the “sympathetic” town;
– Gave town staff raises
– Gave staff paid time off – no town employee lost money during covid
– Increased spending for vanity and pet projects,
– Increased spending for new bike trails
– Increased spending for the underpass
– Gave insider deals through property sales at 75% discount to friends of the mayor
– Mayor had a mocking “protester sale” in the faces of those who wanted to be able to work
– Raised the water rates
– Increased spending to steal revenue from Bloomington
– Increased spending for recycling drop off center locations
– Gave tax breaks for another bar to be built in uptown – (Koos is using tax dollars to fund “super spreader” locations)
The list could go on…
The professional and sympathetic town staff, mayor, and council should realize that actions speak louder than hollow words.