The Town of Normal approves a 39% increased budget of $161 million amidst the rising gas taxes and record inflation.
“It is so funny listening to the mayor talk, even the town manager because they have said in the past, ‘If we approve it in the budget, then we need to do it because we approved it in the budget.’ Last night [March 7 2022] they said approving this doesn’t mean we are going to actually spend the money, so there is no consistent argument that is brought forward. They will absolutely say whatever they think they have to say in order to pass something,” said councilman Stand Nord.
Nord said a large dollar amount is going towards the underpass and bike trails.
The council plans to expand the Cultural Arts Department and there is an additional 22.75 staff that the town is wanting to bring on.
“The town is creating their own Communications so they can control the message. Now they are competing with media outlets like Cities and the Pantagraph, which I think is unfortunate but also in cultural arts they are increasing it by a couple people. This is not staff to actually fix infrastructure. Our staff to fix our roads is not really much different than what it has been in the past. Whenever you talk with council about infrastructure they may say ‘a bike trail is infrastructure.’ In my mind: streets, water, sewer and public safety…that’s what I consider our core. In Normal our amenity spending gets by far the priority. That’s what this budget reflects as well,” said Nord.
A majority of the expenditures is going towards staff salaries, wages and benefits. Only 9% of the budget is going towards debt service. The total debt is the over $83 million. This number does not include the interest Normal has to pay on the purchased money.
In the town’s debt summary is a $111,747,862. That is the total taxpayers will pay for principle and interest, unless the loans are refinanced, which would mean more interest payments.
“This is a consequence of elections. If you have people elected who don’t put that as a priority, then it doesn’t happen. Last night [March 7 2022] is a perfect example of why I can say this,” said Nord. “We had council members up there saying we should not question the town manager or the staff as to why they want to spend this money. Or how they are going to spend this money, that is their job that’s why we hired a town manager. We should just shut our pie hole and give them as much money as they want to use as they want because that’s their job. That’s why the roads do not get fixed.”
Councilwoman Kathleen Lorenz said she was concerned about the rising inflation and the increasing of all 20+ staff at the same time. Cumming suggested in the meeting that brining these concerns a forward at a 7 pm meeting were too late and that there should be more conversations before hand.
Councilwoman Chemberly Cummings said it is rare that she is ever asked from other council members for her thoughts on “x,y, and z” and that is rare for a council member to reach out and seek support.
“I feel like the only time I’m pulled in is only when we are here. Whether it is for one meeting or another. When we have concerns, to have those addition conversations ahead of time,” said Cummings.
Cummings forwarded an email onto the town manager Pam Reece from Stan Nord with a statement that she is “not responding to this email.”
“I push back on comments that other council members have about bringing this stuff up well in advance. We should, but we also can talk about it at a town council meeting. There are far too many back room deals,” said Nord.
In 2021, the Illinois Attorney General’s Office determined that Normal violated the state Open Meetings Act when they shot down Councilwoman Karyn Smith from speaking during a 2019 public meeting.
“There’s an open meeting act, which is to provide transparency to the public that the public’s business is done out in the public. For council members to advocate for more of these backroom deals, it’s going to lead to more of the corruption that Madigan is being brought into. I welcome all of this investigation into Mike Madigan, but down state I hope that people start looking at all the corruption that happens downstate from all these backroom deals as well,” said Nord.
Nord said he thought it was very disingenuous for her to say that people don’t contact her.
“Our role is to question,” said Nord. “In this next election cycle, I wish the question would be, ‘do you believe your role is to question or to agree with 100% of the ‘professional staff?'”
The council voted 4-3 to raise water rates by 2%, boosting monthly costs by 90 cents or $10.80 for the year for the average household.
“They used the same argument that they did before which was it costs to create clean water. They say that all the money used in the water fund goes to support water systems, only that its an enterprise fund. Yet, a few months ago they robbed from that fund to buy brand new snow plows, and salting equipment for the roads. If they are robbing from this enterprise fund to use on other purposes. That is absolutely not being honest with taxpayers as to why we are taxing them and how we are using that money. I think that everybody who voted for that, just showed that they will naively believe what the town says and ignore what the town does,” said Nord.
Cummings said she feels when you don’t have a micro-management attitude then conversations can be had.
Nord said the town has gone without these new staff members for years and years the town has functioned.
“Things have not failed. Now we are adding these staff members. This is an every year increase. This isn’t like a one time project increase forever as long as those staff are there. That means pensions costs. That means healthcare costs. All kinds of costs. That’s very different than just adding on a single project,” said Nord.
Photo courtesy BLNNEWS
Cummings mentioned because of the economic climate she had to pick up a third job. Cummings is an analyst at State Farm, Board Trustee and her third job is at Heat Community College. Cummings recieves $25/hr at HCC as a Community Education Instructor. In 2019, her salary at State Farm was nearly $55,000…according to BLNNEWS. Her salary as a Board Trustee is near $7,000.
On the other side of the coin, she votes not to give relief to people.
“People need to look at politicians not for what they say, but for how they vote,” said Nord “At the end of the day that is the only thing that matters, how did they vote? Did they vote to give us relief or did they just talk about it and go the other direction? That’s what she did,” said Nord. “We had the new marijuana tax that came out. They said if we make this tax then we will see this relief. The town takes that money and they spend it. Then there’s no relief to the water bill. There’s no relief to the gas taxes. There’s no relief. I will put on air. The town flat out lies when they say that if we impose a new tax, taxpayers will see some relief. Whenever we got this federal COVID money. The relief money. Did taxpayers see relief? No, we saw a 39% increase in spending the next year. There is no relief with this current council and taxpayers and voters need to realize this and think about this. This is absolutely the consequence of elections.”
Now the budget isn’t all bad, according to Nord there are going to be some roads that are being resurfaced.
“The town doesn’t do everything bad. There’s going to be new construction. Sewers, the water system. Police were hiring some new police staff. There’s fire prevention pieces in it that are good,” said Nord.
National Fitness campaign Pulls Out.
Cities wrote an article about some fraud that appeared to be taking place in the building of an outdoor training facility that happened to deal with the National Fitness Campaign vote and how the town misled the council.
“The town blamed Cites for ending that relationship and for that corruption being stopped. I actually give credit to Cities for doing that and stepping in. The taxpayers now don’t have this corruption lingering on their shoulders,” said Nord.
Obtained via FOIA
“Following the 1/4/22 Council action, accusations of inappropriate action, “materially false information” and spiteful comments have driven an unfortunate narrative. I understand it was the intention to clarify the tax status of National Fitness Campaign which raised initial confusion. A recent Cities 92.9 story demonstrates the unfortunate dialogue driving the conversation. In various conversations with National Fitness Campaign staff, we agreed that impugning the integrity of those seeking to enhance the park was a sign of the times and that now is an inopportune time to seek sponsorships for a fitness installation,” stated the Town Manager Pam Reece.
Cities reached out to the Town of Normal before publishing the story.
“After the story it came out that one of the town staff [Doug Damery] was actually getting a kickback from that [the build of the outdoor training facility] through another organization he was a part of,” said Nord.
The NFC said that there was not consensus from local officials to participate in the NFC Healthy Cities Partnership program, despite the council voting in favor of the partnership.
