By Greg Halbleib
BLOOMINGTON – The head of the Twin Cities economic development group says sharing sales tax dollars could help attract businesses.
Bloomington-Normal Economic Development Council CEO Kyle Ham tells WJBC’s Scott Laughlin staff in both communities have worked hard to attract and accommodate business, but shared sales tax could accommodate shared efforts. Ham says that the communities can combine their already strong efforts to benefit the entire Twin Cities area.
“If you have a chance to land an opportunity, you’re certainly going to do everything you can to compete for it and that’s what Bloomington staff and Normal staff should be doing,” Ham told WJBC’s Scott Laughlin, “but the fact that we’re so closely aligned should get away from the notion of competition and know that we’re all in this together. Imagine staffs calling each other and asking if a site fits. I think having that collaboration will have all boats rising in our community.”
A recent business task force recommended pooling Bloomington and Normal sales tax receipts and distributing them according to population, which Ham says would be about 60 percent to Bloomington and 40 percent to Normal. Ham says current tax receipts are already close to that level.
“The business community rallies around the fact that let’s take away this notion of competition,” Ham said. “Let a business find the best place to live in McLean County and we all win.”
Ham also reported another successful One Voice trip to the nation’s capital to ask lawmakers to help with local projects. The trip resulted in a $1 million federal grant to allow Chestnut Health Systems to expand their facilities for mental health services and become the only Federally Qualified Medical Center in the area. The EDC reports One Voice trips have resulted in about $27 million in grants for the Bloomington-Normal area since the program’s inception in 2006.
