By: Diane Benjamin
If you still haven’t played with the Local Government Reporting on the Illinois Comptroller’s website, do it now!
This is the link to Normal’s reported debt: https://illinoiscomptroller.gov/constituent-services/local-government/local-government-warehouse/processsearchresults/?DisplayMode=GETAFR&AFRDesiredData=Indebtedness&Code=064/095/31&CFY=2022&Menu=Yes&PrintIt=No
At the beginning of FY 2020 total debt was:
$88,090,580
At the end of FY 2020 total debt was:
$85,752,874
At the end of FY 2021 total debt was:
$82,645,166
At the end of FY 2022 total debt was:
$79,487,458
Interest paid:
(under Expenditures at the bottom of the page)
FY 2020 3,104,511
FY 2021 3,031,669
FY 2022 2,780,782
Total Interest Paid: $8,916,962
Total Principal Paid: $8,603,122 (88,090,580 – 79,487,458)
Normal paid $313,840 more in interest than principal.
Koos has stated Uptown was a 40 year investment, Normal is already close to 20 years into that 40 year plan.
Stay tuned, Uptown 2.0 is next. Of course more debt because Koos thinks government needs to control the economy. Filled those two empty banks and diner in Uptown yet Koos?
Funny how government doesn’t have the same problem throwing away money paying interest us plebes do. Of course it isn’t their money they are throwing away. TIF reports aren’t available yet, Uptown should be interesting! (It’s only 7 1/2 months after the end of the fiscal year, why rush?)
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An employee of Normal in a higher up position ,now retired once told me “it’s all free money” that headset is prevalent among the leaders of Normal.
Our grandchildren will be tax slaves. Pension debt adds to the bill.
I fear for their future!
Cloward & Piven: Top down, bottom up, inside out. They are purposefully saddling us with debt. They want future generations enslaved. What they’re building are monuments to themselves. Ugly, uninteresting structures that simultaneously stand as evidence of leftist progressive marxist tyranny AND make-work for matejka’s unions on the backs of the taxpayers.
In addition to the empty diner and 2 bank buildings are the never occupied first flor of the newest building on the round-about, are the former Subway Sandwich in the Station/Village, City, Town Hall, Dr. Stout’s former location on Linden. Also, vacated are 2 store fronts NE of the roundabout on Beaufort for the “Trail East Development” that has not come to fruition and two storefronts on North Street NW of Constitution Trail. All of these were taken off the property tax rolls many years ago resulting in no property tax and limited sales tax from Ohm until it moved further east. The University galleries in the Station parking garage produce no tax revenue and neither does the part of 1st floor of the College Avenue Parking Deck, that was left vacant for commercial development. No news on Trail East or West lately have they gone the way of the first Trail East development. Recall that the President and Manager refused to spend $100,000 to save the wall. About what a Rivian Truck costs. The Manager told the delays caused by the art wall dispute did not doom the first Trail East project. However, the project never came to fruition. Wonder why? I don’t.
1 Uptown Circle supposedly has a tenant. Since it was nothing but a concrete floor the buildout is going to take awhile.
On the plus side, until they issue more bonds for their next pet project, I think we’re finally spending more on roads than on interest! (Though by their own study, that’s still about half of what we Need to be spending on roads…)
With about 35,000 permanent residents in Normal, how much debt is that per person?
Add pensions and everyone is bankrupt
Quick close-enough-for-government-work math: 80 million in bond debt + 120 million in pension-and-related debt = 200 million. 200/33 (makes the math easier than 35, since this is all a rough estimate anyway…) = 6. A million divided by a thousand is a thousand.
So $6,000 per person, or $24,000 per stereotypical family of 4.
Kathleen Lorenz actually joked about Uptown 3 and 4 at the last Uptown South public meeting.
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