Proposed 2024 Bloomington budget of $131M includes 5% raise for employees, 2 dozen added jobs

At around 9:45 p.m. on Friday, the final proposed city budget of Bloomington mayor John Hamilton’s service was uploaded to the city’s website.

At about $131 million, it’s about 1.5 percent more than the budget approved by the city council for 2023.

That figure does not include the budgets for city of Bloomington utilities ($50 million) or for Bloomington Transit ($26.6 million). Adding in  those numbers would bring the overall total to about $208 million.

The 2024 budget includes a 5-percent pay increase for non-union employees.

Property tax revenues for 2024 will increase by 1 point less than the planned pay increase. That’s because the maximum levy growth quotient this year is 4 percent.

The revenue from local income taxes is estimated to increase by about 3.75 percent.

The B Square has counted a couple dozen additional positions that are described in the “budget book” that was released late Friday

The 387-page budget book is background to almost 7 hours worth of scheduled presentations from individual departments over the course of four nights this coming week.

The departmental budget hearings take place on Monday (Aug. 28), Tuesday (Aug. 29), Wednesday (Aug. 30), and Thursday (Aug. 31) of this coming week,

In addition to the 6 hours and 45 minutes of total scheduled time for presentations, there will be time for questions and comments from councilmembers and the public.

The start time each day’s meeting is 5:30 p.m., which is an hour earlier than for a regular city council meeting.

The final, possibly amended budget proposal will be presented to the city council in late September, and is cued up for an adoption vote on  Oct. 11.