By Joe Ragusa
BLOOMINGTON – For over three years, Bloomington’s finance staff didn’t include some wire transfers in its bills and payroll reports that the city council votes on at every meeting.
An addendum approved at Monday night’s city council meeting shows those wire transfers totaled almost $65.3 million. That includes $424,995 the city paid to the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund in accelerated payments due to pension spiking.
Alderman Kevin Lower was the lone vote against the addendum.
“I just want to try to put this thing to rest and make sure that we’re getting full information when we’ve got something like this happening that we bring it to the city council when it should be (brought) and that we’re aware of it,” Lower said.
City Manager David Hales said the money included in the addendum was approved by the council during the budget making process.
“But there’s no doubt that there was an oversight. At one time, even as I was here, these wire transfers were included in the bills and payroll (reports) that were brought before the city council,” Hales said.
Hales said the wire transfers will appear in the council’s bills and payroll reports from now on. He said he doesn’t know why they were omitted.
Joe Ragusa can be reached at joe.ragusa@cumulus.com.
