Bloomington 2024 budget notebook: Tax revenue
On Aug. 28, about three weeks from now, Bloomington’s city council will start a four-day slog through presentations from department heads, about their proposed budgets for 2024.
In 2023, Bloomington’s budget totaled about $129 million—that’s not counting the budget for city of Bloomington utilities (CBU) or Bloomington Transit.
In the past couple of weeks, the tax revenue picture has come into clearer focus.
Property tax revenue will go up by exactly 4 percent. Local income tax revenue will go up by about 3.64 percent.
In early July, Indiana’s state budget agency released its calculations for the maximum levy growth quotient (MLGQ) in 2024. That’s the maximum increase in the total revenues from property taxes that local government units can receive in 2024 compared to 2023. The MLGQ for 2024 is 4.00 percent.
For the city of Bloomington’s general fund, that means the property tax levy for 2024 can’t be any more than $27,819,882. That’s the result of adding 4 percent to this year’s levy, which came in at $26,749,88
The MLGQ would have been higher, by more than a full percentage point, except for some legislation enacted by the General Assembly this spring. The legislation, in the form of HB 1499, amended the state statute on the MLGQ calculation for the next two years, putting a limit of 4 percent on the MLGQ.
If IC 6-1.1-18.5-2 had not been amended, the outcome of the MLGQ calculation would have been 5.1 percent.
A 5.1-percent increase in the general fund levy would have amounted to $28,114,131. So the impact of HB 1499 on the city of Bloomington’s general fund for 2024 is a loss of around $300,000.
This past week, the SBA released the estimated certified distributions of local income tax (LIT) for 2024. Those estimates reflect an increase of about 3.64 percent compared to 2023.
For the certified shares of LIT, which go directly into the city’s general fund, that would mean an increase from $14,331,726 in 2023 to $14,853,482 in 2024.
For the economic development LIT—the tax increase that was enacted last year by the city council for residents countywide—the estimated distributions for 2024 mean a revenue increase from $16,004,743 to $16,587,406. Revenue from the economic development LIT goes into a separate fund.
Of course, property taxes and income taxes are not the only source of revenue for local government.
The B Square has pulled the revenue numbers for the last seven years, and for the partial year in 2023, from the city’s online financial system. Those figures are included in the shared Google Sheet embedded below.
The spreadsheet includes a few different tabs. One of the tabs includes a first slice of the data by revenue stream, then by fund. That view helps answer the question: Given this revenue stream, into which funds does it flow?
Another tab includes a first slice of the data by fund, then by revenue stream. That view helps answer the question: Given this fund, where does the money in the fund come from?
