A new swimming pool and other amenities at Bloomington’s O’Neil Park would cost more than $2 million above what was budgeted for the project before.
On the agenda is the staff’s recommendation to accept the bid from contractor P.J. Hoerr of Normal, which bid almost $13.9 million…but actually the pool is going to cost a near $15 million.
“The westside of Bloomington, in this area they previously had a pool. It was one of two pools in the community and I think providing a pool in that area is very important. My concern is the financial accountability associated with how much we are investing in this pool. This is really reflecting a stage one investment in this park. We have a second pool out there, Holiday Pool, that is basically the same quality that will have to be addressed at some point,” said Sheila Montney, a Bloomington city council member.
Mollie Ward said in Monday’s meeting that she thinks O’Neil is a great asset, which is set to be built in her Ward. Mayor Mboka Mwilamwe said the project would increase the property value.
Monday the council was given new numbers…those numbers represented about a 50% increase over where the cost estimates were when the conversation really was going back in 2018.
“It’s that significant inflation in the amount that’s being spent that I’m deeply concerned about. We haven’t even broken ground yet and were about 50% over the amount of money we were talking about spending when the council was reviewing this in 2018,” said Montney. “For anybody that is a user of the Holiday Pool out there I would encourage you to go listen to the dialogue from this city council meeting on this Monday night. I think the fate of this pool is in question. I’m not meaning to suggest any decision has been made there. If you listen to the dialogue those two pools are about the same vintage.”
Montney said back in 2018 when the decision was made and listening to the conversation around O’Neil Pool they were actually comparing it to Holiday Pool. At that point Holiday Pool was receiving higher feedback from the public. That pool is itself almost 50 years old and at some point the fate of that pool and its ability to be maintained versus replaced remains to be seen.
Gary Lambert was a public commenter at Monday’s meeting and he brought up this issue of almost half a percent of the sales tax increase from a few years ago that was specifically earmarked not in the ordinance for increasing the tax, but in the dialogue around why that tax was increased to address the structural deficit of $7 million.
“Now we have a surplus of a significant amount, beyond just that of what we need in reserves statutorily,” said Montney. “When I heard him speak and I went back and I reviewed the documents, I thought this is an opportunity for us. It’s the right thing to do, to ask ourselves why do we still have this half percent out there if it was raised for a very specific purpose and that gap has been addressed?”
The sales tax was hiked to address the debt issues that Bloomington had. Now this is a very interesting topic, because Bloomington can’t reduce that sales tax by half a percent, unless the Normal Town Council also agrees to do the same thing.
There’s an intergovernmental agreement between these communities relative to sales tax.
“I think it would be a really good conversation to have for both communities to collaborate to consider doing this. We have several new revenue sources as well. Online retail is now taxed effective Jan. 1, 2020. The home rule add on, which is the 2.75% of the sales tax that is locally controlled, was rolled into that on Jan. 1 2021. We also have streaming tax that’s going to be coming on that’s state driven,” said Montney.
Montney said cannabis tax is yet another tax…but Bloomington’s portion remains unclear. Bloomington is sixth in the state of Illinois in the proliferation of video gambling.
“With all of those other revenue sources, when you look at the math. What I’m talking about here and making good on what we said a few years ago and taking that half percent down,” said Montney. “We’re talking about a very small percentage of the annual budget that we have, very small in the 1-2% range. With all these other revenue sources and you said it earlier with inflation going up there’s this straight line increase in the revenues that are coming to the community as a result of sales tax, just because the underlying goods are increasing in their cost.”
In 2016 the budget was $161 million…now fast forward 2022 the total budget is $269 million. Inflation adjusted the 2022 budget by about $70 million. This is a 67% increase.
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