Bloomington mayor, city council try to tackle 2025 budget tensions ahead of Sept. 25 hearing
The city of Bloomington’s 2025 budget could get approved on the same schedule that currently appears on the calendar—with a city council vote on adoption set for Oct. 9, after a public hearing on Sept. 25.
That’s based on the back-and-forth that came on Wednesday between Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson and city councilmembers at the end of the regular council meeting.
After last week’s four days of budget hearings, it was uncertain that five votes on the nine-member council could be found to approve the budget as it had been presented to the council.
One possibility was, and technically still is, that the council would vote on Oct. 9 to reject the budget or delay it, in order to extract concessions from the mayor.
Postponement was the tactic used in October 2021 by the council, with then-mayor John Hamilton The vote that year came at the end of October.
Thomson had been unable to appear in person last week in front of the council due to illness. But on Wednesday, standing in front of the council, with controller Jessica McClellan, Thomson appeared to have gone a good ways towards persuading those councilmembers who had qualms about unfunded priorities that there is a path forward to getting some of those items funded.
Especially for unfunded capital projects, that path would be paved with revenue from the issuance of GO (general obligation bonds), which was a possibility that McClellan had floated on the first night of last week’s budget hearings.
The conversation between the mayor and the council had not originally appeared on the council’s meeting agenda. But on Tuesday, the city council office issued notice of a planned revision to the agenda, to include a discussion of Thomson’s 2025 budget proposal.
Specific items requested for inclusion by councilmembers Sydney Zulich, Matt Flaherty, Kate Rosenbarger, Hopi Stosberg, and Isabel Piedmont-Smith included: funding for infrastructure projects to support the Safe Streets for All initiative; a $500,000 appropriation for the council’s sidewalk fund (instead of just $350,000); and $10,000 study by LEAP (Law Enforcement Action Partnership) to analyze the calls for service received by Bloomington police.
The biggest dollar amounts sound like they involve Safe Streets projects that could be funded with a GO bond issuance. Based on the presentation last week, it sounds like the amount of the GO bond issuance could be around $5–6 million.
About GO Bonds, Thomson said, “The operating budget is only one of the funding streams that we have—it needs to fund salaries.” She added, “We can’t bond for salaries. Infrastructure and capital projects can be bonded for.”
Thomson also recognized that issuing a GO bond would mean increasing the amount of taxes that property owners will pay. She put it like this: “I also want to note that while Bloomington has—for the state—a relatively low tax rate, we have increased taxes lately.” Thomson added, “And if you’re not hearing from constituents about the pressure that that’s putting on people, especially on fixed income, I want to communicate to you that I am.”
Thomson said, “We are doing our best to put together a budget that meets top city needs, looks at other funding streams to potentially fund capital projects, which they can do pretty well, and attempts to not increase taxes.”
McClellan told councilmembers that the amount to be advertised for the budget, by Sept. 13 for the Sept. 25 hearing, would be “high” and would include the amount of debt service to be paid on the GO bonds. The actual issuance of the GO bonds will have to be sorted out separately, after the budget is approved.
Asked specifically by Piedmont-Smith if she would fund a $10,000 study of police calls for service by LEAP, Thomson said, “We could probably figure that out.”
But Thomson added, “I will just say best practice in hiring consultants is that you actually put an RFP [request for proposals] out and get multiple bids, so that we’re not determining who we’re hiring.” Thomson continued, “We’re saying some work needs to be done, and we’re allocating funding for that work—but I commit to getting that done.”
Councilmembers Courtney Daily, Dave Rollo, and Isak Asare, seemed basically in support of the Thomson’s budget as proposed, even if they were keen to see an improved process for next year. Councilmember Andy Ruff was absent from Wednesday’s meeting.
Rollo said that Thomson’s proposed budget “honors the fundamentals” that he looks for in a budget, which is adequate compensation for staff, in particular for police.
Daily said, “I will be supporting this budget.” She pointed to the increases in compensation for staff as a reason to support it.
Asare said, “Given the way that we presented priorities to the mayor, this is an equal reflection of what we presented, which was an equal set of priorities.” The list of items that the council labeled “priorities” in its letter to the mayor was organized alphabetically.
Asare continued, “We never said that we cared about one more than the other. I wish we had, but we did not.” Asare wrapped up by saying, “I’m supporting where we are right now, but look forward to further conversations about what we’re going to do with some of these other possible funding streams.”
