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12th-hour petition filed, objecting to convention center expansion in Bloomington’s 2025 city budget

12th-hour petition filed, objecting to convention center expansion in Bloomington’s 2025 city budget

NOTICE TO TAXPAYERS The Notice to Taxpayers is available online at www.budgetnotices.in.gov or by calling (888) 739-9826. Complete details of budget estimates by fund and/or department may be seen by visiting the office of this unit of government at 401 N Morton St Bloomington IN 47404, Council Chambers Suite 115. Notice is hereby given to taxpayers of BLOOMINGTON CIVIL CITY, Monroe County, Indiana that the proper officers of Bloomington Civil City will conduct a public hearing on the year 2025 budget. Following this meeting, any ten or more taxpayers may object to a budget, tax rate, or tax levy by filing an objection petition with the proper officers of Bloomington Civil City not more than seven days after the hearing. The objection petition must identify the provisions of the budget, tax rate, or tax levy to which taxpayers object. If a petition is filed, Bloomington Civil City shall adopt with the budget a finding concerning the objections in the petition and testimony presented. Following the aforementioned hearing, the proper officers of Bloomington Civil City will meet to adopt the following budget:

A special meeting is set this Wednesday (Oct. 9) for Bloomington’s city council to adopt the 2025 budget.

The meeting could include an extra wrinkle, based on a petition that has been filed by Bloomington resident Joe Davis, and nine others.

The petitioners object to the 2025 budget, asking that “no monies be appropriated for the expansion of the Monroe County Convention Center, at this time.”

Included in the 2025 budget is money to cover the Monroe County capital improvement board’s (CIB’s) budget, which totals $899,400. The CIB is overseeing the convention center expansion project.

The nearly $900,000 will be drawn from the 1-percent food and beverage tax revenues, which have been collected since early 2018 for the purpose of funding a convention center expansion.

Ten is the minimum number of petitioners required under state law to invoke a provision of the budget adoption process that requires an extra step for the city council—which requires adoption of a finding about the petition.

But such a petition itself does not block or hinder the passage of the budget.

The law says the city council has to “adopt with its budget a finding concerning the objections in the petition and any testimony presented at the adoption hearing.” The testimony, of course, could convince a majority of councilmembers to either cut some part of the budget, or to vote against its adoption.

Information about the possibility of filing a petition is included in the boilerplate wording of the notice of the budget public hearing.

Even if it has the required number of signers, it looks like Davis’s petition was filed two minutes late.

The deadline for such a petition to be filed is tied to the date of the budget hearing—which took place on Sept. 25. Under state law, the petition has to be filed “not more than seven (7) days after the hearing.” That put the deadline for filing at the end of the day on Oct. 2.

The emailed correspondence forwarded to The B Square by Davis shows the submission of the petition with an emailed timestamp of 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 3.

Davis contends that he sent the email “at 12:00 midnight.” But even 12:00 midnight would already be on Oct. 3.

A message from new city council administrator/attorney Lisa Lehner to Davis, which acknowledges receipt of the petition at 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 3, says, “This email is not an acknowledgement of whether the Petition was timely or properly filed. ”

Still, Lehner’s email message indicates that Davis and the other petitioners will be given time to present their testimony at the council’s budget adoption meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 9.

A revised city council staff memo about the budget, written by deputy council administrator/attorney Ash Kulak, provides a briefing on the required legal process for handling a petition like the one filed by Davis.

Kulak’s memo seems to indicate that the petition might be considered as filed on time. Without any clear contingency on a determination that the petition was filed on time, the memo says: “The Council should adopt written findings concerning the objections in the petition and testimony presented by petitioners.”

As recently as 2020, Bloomington’s city council saw a petition objecting to the budget under the same state law that Davis is invoking. The 2020 petition was signed by over 150 people, who said they did not want to see the scope of Bloomington’s police department expanded to include new embedded social worker positions.

In 2020, the council’s “finding” on the petition just acknowledged its receipt, and was passed as a simple motion:

The council finds that it has received the document titled ‘Letter opposing 2021 proposed police budget’ and accompanying signature page and has duly considered the recommendations contained therein, as well as public comments provided at meetings related to the 2021 budget, while considering the 2021 budget tax rates and tax levy.

The city council’s 2025 budget adoption meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

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