By Joe Ragusa
BLOOMINGTON – People shopping in Bloomington will pay one percent more on their sales tax starting in 2016.
The Bloomington City Council approved the increase Monday night by a 7-2 vote.
Despite voting for the proposal, Alderman Karen Schmidt didn’t like the vagueness of the city’s plan to dump 50 percent of the revenue generated from the sales tax increase into the general fund.
“My point is that we’re putting it into the general fund, but when are we going to have the conversation about how we’re shoring up our general fund?” Schmidt asked the council.
Alderman David Sage, chair of the Budget Task Force assigned with closing a $7 million deficit in the fiscal year 2017 budget, said there should still be more time to have those discussions.
“This is not an 11th hour that we’ve made,” Sage said. “This is an 11th hour that Normal has made for us.”
Normal passed its own one-percent sales tax increase earlier this month, contingent on Bloomington doing the same.
The Normal Town Council has discussed using that revenue for things like Connect Transit and a new soccer complex, but those recipients aren’t mentioned in Bloomington’s proposal.
In order to start collecting the increased sales tax by Jan. 1, the city needs to file paperwork with the state by Oct. 1. If the city council waited until after that deadline, the Illinois Department of Revenue would start collecting the increased sales tax on July 1.
Fifty percent of the revenue generated from the sales tax increase, estimated by the city to be about $4.8 million, will go toward the city’s structural deficit in next year’s budget. Twenty-five percent will go towards the county’s mental health needs and the remaining quarter will go towards street resurfacing.
Aldermen Mboka Mwilambwe and Kevin Lower voted against the proposal.
Joe Ragusa can be reached at [email protected].
