By Joe Ragusa
BLOOMINGTON – The Bloomington City Council will discuss a potential sales tax increase at Monday night’s meeting, but the council won’t vote on a one-percent increase until the following week.
City Manager David Hales said a special city council meeting will be scheduled after the Committee of the Whole meeting on Sept. 21.
“Our proposal for these two meetings is similar to what the town of Normal board did, in as much as they first had a work session. They heard from some community individuals, then they also took public comment and they had a little discussion as to if they wanted to proceed,” Hales said.
The Normal Town Council approved a sales tax increase earlier this week with 25 percent of the new revenue going towards mental health needs. Hales said he will recommend that another 25 percent go towards street resurfacing.
“This quarter-percent for street resurfacing would actually boost our overall annual street resurfacing budget from $2.5 million to $5 million,” Hales said.
Hales is also going to recommend that the remaining revenue go into the general fund to take care of things like public safety, deferred maintenance and emergency costs. Hales said there’s at least $400 million in deferred infrastructure needs.
Joe Ragusa can be reached at [email protected].
