By Howard Packowitz
BLOOMINGTON – Bloomington city leaders are apparently willing to save the Bloomington-Normal Economic Development Council from a reduction in the subsidy the city pays to fund the organization.
Instead, the proposed budget for the next fiscal year did not spare two other economic development organizations from the chopping block, and the city plans to use that money to build its own local economic development team.
City Manager Tim Gleason said the city’s EDC contribution will remain at $100,000, equal to contributions from Normal and McLean County as EDC looks for a permanent CEO to replace Kyle Ham, who left last spring.
“This is one where we felt it would be detrimental if the City of Bloomington reduced its funding, as you got an entity that’s beginning stages of recruitment and trying to attract that new executive director, that permanent executive director,” said Gleason.
The proposed budget slashes the subsidy to the Bloomington-Normal Area Convention and Visitors Bureau by $125,000 to $350,000, and reduces the city’s payment to BN Advantage by $75,000 to $50,000.
The city council in the coming weeks will decide in the coming weeks whether to double the local gasoline tax to eight cents per gallon to fund repairs to crumbling infrastructure. The motor fuel tax hike would generate an extra $2.3 million in revenue, specifically to fund road repairs.
Alderman Mboka Mwilambwe asked staffers to provide a history of city spending on roads, showing previous councils neglected infrastructure work.
“In the past, we had years prior to me being on the council, we only spent about $500,000 on road resurfacing,” Mwilambwe said.
“One year, zero,” Mayor Tari Renner chimed in.
Renner supports the four cent per gallon increase in the local motor fuel tax.
The council will also decide whether to impose a $500 fee for each video gaming terminal in the city to help pay for scaled-back plans to build a new O’Neil Park swimming pool.
City Manager Gleason would like to scrap plans for an aquatic center, and focus mainly on a new swimming pool for the west side park.
The fee on gaming machines would raise about $125,000.
Howard Packowitz can be reached at [email protected]
