By: Diane Benjamin

Bloomington spends a fortune on Information Technology:

PDF page 165 https://www.bloomingtonil.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/27976/637892645121170000

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Spending MILLIONS of dollars every year should mean first class access to data.

It doesn’t!

Bloomington doesn’t know how many landlords were forced to pay bills for tenants a previous City Council said they didn’t have to pay.

Bloomington doesn’t know how many landlords have un-rentable properties because the water is shut off because (again) a previous Council deemed tenants exempt from paying their bills. Landlords weren’t notified of past due amounts until tenants left or were evicted.

Obviously government employees have no business sense. They don’t have to worry about money because they can always get more. Watch your utility bills increase automatically every year because (again) a previous Council got tired of voting to increase rates. Automatic increases are SOOOOOO much easier.

Here’s what I can tell you. The City of Bloomington has a list of registered landlords. Those addresses are entered separately in the billing system. The two entries do not match and are not linked in any way. That means even a manual comparison of property addresses isn’t possible because one list has East-West-North-South included (or just N-S-E-W) , the other list doesn’t.

In other words, the list of registered apartments is useless.

There are 2921 addresses on that list!

Now for the reason your rates keep increasing, these are water bills: (most likely all utilities since they are billed together)

The City has bills over 120 days past due of $1.4 million

I have a list by address of past due amounts. It sure looks to me like not everyone 60 days pasty due has been shut off. 1-30 looks like just another bill added to all the rest past due.

3 lines have no address. I can only assume the City didn’t want me to know those 3 address. Yes, I asked for them early this morning, so far nothing.

Government has no intention of ever being fiscally responsible like the private sector because they don’t have to. They have you to bill for their maleficence.

Those of you who always pay your City bills are paying for those who don’t. The City of Bloomington doesn’t care or they would be collecting amounts past due and forgiving the landlords before they get sued for their stupid ordinance telling tenants they didn’t have to pay.

Of course the City can’t tell anyone which landlords and how much! Brilliant.

I did a story in 2015 showing past due bills: https://blnnews.com/2015/11/18/more-than-a-year-past-due/

Past due water was only $396,065.49.

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