By: Diane Benjamin
https://www.bloomingtonil.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/32213
Some city employees are still spiking pensions. They rack up leave/sick days, cash out a lump sum at retirement, and use it to substantially boost their pensions. State law changed in 2012 to let IMRF (Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund) bill local governments for those spiked pensions—ones the governments never funded extra for.
Bloomington finally changed the policy in 2020 after years of massive penalties. But it didn’t apply to every employee—so tonight, yet another penalty is going to IMRF . Sick leave buy back payments (I think) go into a Health Savings Account.
This penalty to IMRF was paid, I would need to FOIA IMRF to see who it applies to:
Tonight’s Agenda: https://bloomingtonil.portal.civicclerk.com/event/4099/files/agenda/9212
The only item on the Regular Agenda is changing City Code for downtown.
If you haven’t heard, the City’s First Friday plan to get people downtown is ending: https://www.wglt.org/local-news/2026-01-09/downtown-bloomington-reboots-first-fridays-with-anchor-events-3-times-a-year
Tune in tonight to hear the explanation for the changes. The decades old quest to get people downtown continues.
One more payment tonight:
District 87 received TIF dollars for tennis?
The Tax Increment Finance (TIF) funds came from the redevelopment of the old K-Mart shopping center.
This is a map of the TIF from this story: https://blnnews.com/2019/12/30/bloomingtons-empire-corridor-tif/
Now you know why District 87 was included.
