BLOOMINGTON — The City of Bloomington's $331 million proposed budget for the 2025 fiscal year would include $69 million for public safety, which would cover 100% of annual pension contributions and pay for nine additional personnel: seven in the police department and two in the fire department.
According to a budget presentation at Monday's City Council meeting, the public safety budget shows a roughly $4.2 million, or 6.6%, increase over last year.
Bloomington Finance Director Scott Rathbun said the police and fire departments had a combined 82,000 services calls in the 2023 calendar year. This averages to about 188 calls per day for the police and 37 calls a day for the fire department.
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"We need to make sure that our public safety departments have the equipment they need to protect and service the community as they need and the community deserves," Rathbun said.
The city remained committed to fully funding its police and fire pension obligations, which increased by about $2.4 million over last year. In order to do so, the city used additional tax revenues to fill the shortfall after the City Council voted down a roughly 4.9% property tax levy increase that would have gone toward pensions.
Rathbun said the city also is anticipating the use of about $8.7 million in reserve and is avoiding the use of these funds for general operations. Some of this funding will go toward police and fire department improvements.
Even with the use of reserve funding in response to increased capital costs, Rathbun said he still expects the overall balance to be around $40 million.
Other budget highlights include a record $88.5 million annual investment in capital projects: $43 million for streets and sidewalks, $34.1 million for water infrastructure and $11.4 million for facility maintenance and quality of life projects.
The City Council is expected to hear a presentation on the finalized budget on March 11.
A public hearing will then be held on March 25 before the City Council votes on the budget April 8.
Connect Transit Business Before Hours
Sponsored by the McLean County Chamber of Commerce
Wednesday, July 26
This early morning networking event was held in one the garages at Connect Transit, where a cool breeze and hot coffee kept the crowd awake and engaged. Guests not only got to meet and greet but tour the buses and the new Connect FLEX van.