By: Diane Benjamin
Yesterday Chris Koos posted this on his official Mayor’s Facebook page:
Marc’s response:
Koos obviously doesn’t understand the difference between the TOTAL Sales Tax Rate and the LOCAL Sales Tax Rate. Other taxing bodies like to take money too.
Going to say the debt you racked up isn’t a problem next Koos?
Going to claim only paying interest on some bonds is a good idea too?
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Once again, Koos proves that he is an idiot.
I argue Koos is not an idiot. He has been able to fleece and transform Normal into a bike buying mecca. Brilliant sales strategy for a bike shop owner. And he has been able to steer lucrative property and Town town contracts to his friends for nearly 20 years.
Idiot, no. Corrupt, an a$$, and someone with no empathy for others – yes.
Koos is done and he knows it. Most have made up their minds already, including many people he could once rely on to vote for him and champion his ideas. People are sick of insider deals, wasteful spending, ever-increasing taxes, broken promises, and bullying.
Voters better wake up! America is making us tax slaves.
“Corrupt, an a$$, and someone with no empathy for others.” That’s qualifies as an idiot in my book. Guess it all depends on your personal opinion.
Not only is koos arrogant, but he uses “koos math” to figure things, hence, the uptown debt of roughly $100 million.
Curious as to what percentage of total revenue is from local sales tax. What percentage of total revenue is from property tax?
Stan Nord?
While I don’t have the specifics to this question, here’s what I do know
Illinois residents pay an effective real-estate tax rate of 2.3%, the second highest in the nation, second only to New Jersey. This amounts to annual taxes on a $205,000 home to be $4,705. On top of this, local taxing authorities impose a levy on property owners. In Normal, it’s, Unit 5, Heartland Community College, the Normal Public Library and the town of Normal that uses that money for pensions. TIF districts take money away from these taxing entities with the broken promise that tax revenue will increase when the property is improved. I’ve lost count on how many TIF districts Normal has to say nothing of how many properties they’ve acquired and made tax exempt. But, in Normal they keep paying the taxes.
As for the sales tax, in 2019, Illinois had the fourth highest combined sales and income tax in the nation behind, New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey.
I wish our local leaders would stop comparing us to Decatur, Springfield, Peoria and Champaign. We’re still in the state of Illinois and it’s not friendly to taxpayers. The average homeowner in Normal is paying nearly $400 per month in property taxes alone. In addition the Normal Town Council has raised water, sewer and garbage collection fees. It’s not an affordable place to live.
What I’ve found frustrating is that most taxpayers don’t even know any of this because they’re paying their property taxes in escrow and not paying any attention to the bill. This summer I had a conversation with a homeowner who didn’t even know she was paying taxes to Heartland Community College and guess what? I expect them to raising their levy just as Unit 5 is.
A few years ago, I did an independent analysis of Richardson, Texas, Dunwoody, Georgia and Tempe, Arizona. These three locations are where State Farm has relocated BN workers. All three were at the time were in a better taxing situation than Bloomington / Normal.
Let him go nasty. If he continues to LIE and gets put down like this situation it will reveal him for the putz he is.
I can’t believe how nasty he got right away. Glad you caught this Diane.
It did lead me to think that we are going to need a reference source that we can use to explain simply to people how the Uptown Normal TIF negatively impacts the community. I don’t know if this is something Marc needs on a website where we can reach it when we need to reiterate it or if it is something we can help him put together.