By Eric Stock
BLOOMINGTON – The city of Bloomington will be getting to work soon on fixing its aging streets.
The city council on Monday approved $4.6 million in contracts for road resurfacing, street and alley repair and sidewalk replacement.
PODCAST: Listen to Scott’s interview with Hales on WJBC.
City manager David Hales told WJBC’s Scott Laughlin the city will soon by posting on its website a map of streets that will be getting work this summer along with a map of the street repairs that have been done over the last several years.
“We’ve made great progress in trying to resurface streets in the city of Bloomington,” Hales said.
The city has hired Rowe Construction of Bloomington to handle resurfacing for $2.4 million and street and alley repairs for $1.3 million, with both to be done by November. The city will pay J.G. Stewart of Bloomington $900,000 to replace bad sidewalks and install handicap ramps.
Hales said the city won’t face too bad a financial hit as the state recovers money it overpaid in property taxes.
“It really will not have a significant impact to our nearly $100 million general fund,” Hales said.
He said the state plans to simply reduce its payments in property tax revenue over time to recoup the $236,000 the city must repay.
“Unfortunately sometimes those errors to occur,” Hales said. “We appreciate the state recognizing that and working with us on how to minimize the pain as those funds are repaid to the state.” Hales said.
The problem was caused by a computer miscalculation at the state. Illinois is trying to recover $168 million that it overpaid to more than 6,500 local government bodies.
Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].
