By Joe Ragusa
BLOOMINGTON – Bloomington-Normal residents will pay a cent more for every dollar they spend in the area next year.
The two municipalities passed a one percent sales tax increase in 2015, making the sales tax 8.75 percent starting Jan. 1.
The Normal Town Council pushed the proposal through first with a unanimous vote in early September. 25 percent of the new revenue generated will go towards the county’s mental health needs, but the rest could go to things like Connect Transit or a new multi-sport complex.
“They are investments, they are not wants, so government’s role in helping support those things is fundamental,” Councilman Kevin McCarthy said. “It’s not a needs-or-wants conversation anymore, it’s how are you going to do it?”
The discussion over a sales tax increase in Bloomington was a bit more contentious. Alderman David Sage said the council should have had more time.
“This is not an 11th hour that we’ve made, this is an 11th hour that Normal has made for us,” Sage said.
Some citizens were angry about the sales tax increase, like Gary Lambert, who’s worried the council is spending too much on quality of life issues.
“What you’re doing is continuing to fund these projects while not adequately planning for the real needs of the community,” Lambert told the council during a hearing.
The tax increase is estimated to bring in about $9.6 million annually for Bloomington and half of that will go towards the structural deficit in the city’s budget next year.
25 percent will go towards the county’s mental health needs, same as Normal, and the remaining quarter will go towards street resurfacing. Alderman Mboka Mwilambwe liked that half the money was going towards those purposes.
“The other 50 percent, I wasn’t quite sure,” Mwilambwe said. “I needed to have a little more assurances of where that money was going to go.”
He voted against the proposal along with Alderman Kevin Lower.
In order to start collecting the increased sales tax by the beginning of the year, both municipalities had to file paperwork with the state by Oct. 1.
Joe Ragusa can be reached at joe.ragusa@cumulus.com.
