By: Diane Benjamin While Bloomington is trying to pay cash for purchases instead of borrowing for capital expenses, Normal is running in the opposite direction. The Town of Normal stockpiles money in reserves, the applicable fund for this discussion is Vehicle and Equipment reserves. Obviously citizens in Normal are paying higher taxes so the Town […]
By: Diane Benjamin Citizen survey – Normal Police: https://normal.org/FormCenter/Police-10/2020-Citizens-Survey-55 https://normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3830 Semi-annual bond payments: The majority of these payments do nothing to pay down the debt. Interest totals $1,577,138.75. The amount to reduce the debt is only $470,000. A “Responsible City”?
by: Diane Benjamin First a little history. From the Pantagraph How Time Flies 1/21/2020: Have your property taxes gone down? Responsible adults know being able to make the payments is not a good philosophy to live by. If you want to make the neighbors jealous by living in a mansion with two expensive vehicles parked […]
By: Diane Benjamin Normal reported the same credit ratings in their financial statements that I reported in this story: https://blnnews.com/2019/12/07/moodys-normal-doesnt-have-a-aaa-credit-rating/ PDF page 33: https://normal.org/DocumentCenter/View/15625/CAFR19-FINAL-DOC What they failed to tell you is that Fitch is owned by a French company and is the smallest of the “Big Three” ratings companies. https://www.sapling.com/7319147/sp-moodys-fitch-ratings S&P doesn’t not have […]
By: Diane Benjamin Follow-up to this story: https://blnnews.com/2019/03/29/the-tale-of-two-downtowns/ How much does a pretty downtown cost? I find it hilarious that RC McBride is running radio ads asking for your vote claiming they have paid off $10 million of debt. They may have, but he doesn’t mention how much debt they still have left to pay. […]
