By: Diane Benjamin
Normal hasn’t submitted data to the Comptroller’s office from the year ended 3/31/24 yet, it’s only been 6 1/2 months since year end.
Bloomington hasn’t submitted data from 4/30/24 yet, they are only 5 1/2 months after year end.
The below lists local tax receipts for the last 3 years. A summary of total taxes received is below those because not all revenue is local. Click either link for a breakdown of all taxes.
“General” are the taxes that go in the General Fund. Town of Normal “Total Taxes” increased more than $20 million in 2 years. Keep in mind they were the first to pass a 1% Grocery Tax when the State Tax expires in 2026. (Government NEVER has enough money)
Bloomington’s “Total Taxes” increased almost $30 million in two years. Watch for them to pass a grocery tax too after they said they aren’t considering it. I bet they wanted to see how much outrage Normal generated. Government always claims they “need” the money. Your needs and financial stability have been degenerated by inflation while your “revenue” probably isn’t keeping pace – unless you are government employee receiving cost of living raises and wage increases too.
When both get around to reporting last year’s numbers I will add those. Inflation means everything costs more and therefore taxes are higher. High gas prices produce higher taxes too since you not only pay a gas tax, you pay a sales tax on every gallon too.
State Motor Fuel Taxes and Enterprise Funds are not included in these numbers. I don’t believe ARPA funds are included. Several lines on the comptroller’s site are labeled “other” and an explanation is supposed to be entered. Normal didn’t add an explanation to anything, Bloomington did. ARPA isn’t listed.
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Town of Normal data:
City of Bloomington data:
Last year’s property tax levy in Normal included a $500,000 replenishment to the general fund along with funding the library and public pension liabilities. This should cause people in Normal to be concerned. Normal was one of the first municipalities in Illinois to reinstate the 1% grocery tax. If they can use the property tax levy as a means of replenishing the general fund, what’s to stop them from increasing the grocery tax to 1.5% or even higher as a means of replenishing other funds? A .5% increase to the grocery tax just might fund their underpass in Uptown. Normal seems to operate under the mistaken notion that tax payers have deep pockets. We do not.
Deep taxpayer pockets are for city manager raises Stop. being. selfish.