State Senator Dave Koehler has passed a bill in the senate that would expand the Central Illinois Regional Airport’s (CIRA) tax base from beyond the limits of the cities of Bloomington and Normal to include all of McLean County. The bill is now in the house.
It’s not the first time this has been tried. CIRA tried the same thing in 2018. At that time they could not find a regional legislator to support them. The effort failed.
Because of redistricting last year, Koehler is now the state senator that represents most of Bloomington-Normal. And now CIRA has gained Koehler’s support. Koehler argues that passage of the bill would spread the tax across the entire county and lower taxes for Bloomington-Normal residents.
Normal Mayor Chris Koos supports Koehler’s effort. Koos believes the expanded tax base would make CIRA more competitive with other neighboring airports.
But the opposition to the measure disagrees.
Anna Ziegler, Assistant Manager for the McLean County Farm Bureau, says, “McLean County Farm Bureau is opposed to the efforts of the Bloomington-Normal Airport Authority to expand its taxing district for all of McLean County. Its currently Senate Bill 684.”
Ziegler listed four reasons why the Farm Bureau opposes the bill;
- Taxes would increase for farm property owners with little benefit.
- Property taxes are already increasing on owners of farm land.
- The Airport Authority should explore other options.
- The issue should be decided by referendum not state legislation.
Ziegler claims, “Agriculture really doesn’t benefit directly from the airport.” “The dollars that are spent from the airport traffic are mainly going to hotels, restaurants and sales tax revenue in the cities of Bloomington-Normal,” she said. “It doesn’t really extend out very much to the rural areas.”
“Adding a new taxing district would pile onto the already increasing property tax burden for our farm property owners,” Ziegler continued. “In the past 10 years the Equalized Assessed Value (EAV) of farm land of McLean County has increased 67% so because their certified land value has climbed that significantly they are already paying higher taxes before we talk about any rate increase.”
“We think that some type of a user fee or other revenue other than property taxes is probably a better way for the airport to seek revenue if it needs it,” Ziegler said. Because, as the Airport Authority said when they gave their comments on Monday this week, 71% of the airport traffic actually comes from outside of McLean County. So if that much of the traffic is coming from outside the county, why are we only talking about taxing McLean County?”
The Farm bureau believes that, “Property tax issues should be decided more by front door referendum. Typically (with) a property tax issue the voters that are going to be affected vote on it via referendum and we think that would be a more fair way to do this because the vast majority of the senators and representatives in Springfield don’t represent McLean County.”
The McLean County Mayor’s Association also opposes Koehler’s bill. Spencer Johnson, the Mayor of the City of Lexington, serves as the Chair of the Association.
Johnson, speaking for the residents of Lexington, said, “It’s going to increase their property taxes. It’s a new tax. It’s not raising the taxes they have. It will be a brand new tax they will have and we have people on fixed incomes that really can’t afford that.”
Johnson continued, “And it also limits our other taxing bodies, for instance, our (Lexington) library board, if they feel they need to get a tax increase just to make ends meet the voters are going to vote that down because they have already raised their taxes enough. So people, they just can’t keep being taxed for this.”
Rhonda Baer, the Mayor of the Village of Carlock, agreed that Koehler’s tax could make it difficult for local bodies to raise taxes to address local needs saying, “We too have a library district and a fire district along with the Village of Carlock and the township districts and of course McLean County Unit 5 and Heartland College.”
“All of those taxing districts those board members that sit on those taxing districts are elected by the constituents of those districts and so they have the power to say yes or no to those boards. We approve or not approve through elections,” Baer said.
Baer continued, “The problem with this board, the CIRA board, is that it’s an appointed board, by elected officials, granted, so that’s how it is legal, but the rural McLean County area really will not have any fair representation because there is no requirement after this is restructured that the McLean County appointed seats to the board will have to be from the rural areas.”
“So now the rural areas could be paying for a tax without representation on a board, they certainly haven’t elected the board, so it’s really unfair. So that tax then, imposed on us takes away the potential valuable dollars from the other taxing bodies that directly effect our residents and are elected by our residents.”
Allen Grussing, the Mayor of the Village of Bellflower, added, “None of that tax money is doing anything for our town. It doesn’t help me put in a new well. It doesn’t help me do drainage tile in town. It’s all coming back to the airport. And yet we get no benefit back from it. We get no hotel revenue, no restaurant revenue, no visitors coming through town shopping in places.”
Like the Farm Bureau, the Mayor’s Association doesn’t like the way this is being handled.
“We oppose the whole way this was brought about, Johnson said. “As the Farm Bureau stated, There are laws specified that it has to go before a resolution before the voters. Somehow there is some kind of loophole they have found where they get this legislation through so it doesn’t go before the voters.”
“And it started out as one senate bill number, Johnson went on. “We were watching that closely. At the last minute they switched it onto a shell bill and put it in and the senate passed it.”
The Farm Bureau and Mayors Association representatives spoke during the public comment session at the end of Thursday night’s McLean County Board during the session allowed for items not on the agenda.
The McLean County Board’s Executive Committee discussed passing a resolution opposing Koehler’s bill at its meeting on Monday. However the committee postponed any action on such a measure until its June meeting.
