By Mayor Tim Busse
On December 5, the City Council approved the 2023 property tax levy of $74,545,878 million—a 9.15% increase over 2022. Before this vote, staff was out and about engaging with residents at seven different community events, and the Council discussed the budget during eight different Council meetings. Four of my Council colleagues and I hosted town hall forums in the community where the budget was a big topic of discussion. Information collected as part of the National Community Survey™ also addressed budget topics. Based on all of that feedback, the community engagement and interaction and the thoughtful Council discussion, I’m very confident that our 2023 budget reflects the priorities of this community and sets us on a solid path moving forward.
Time and again, we heard that public safety was of the utmost importance, and this budget reflects that. Eighty-five percent of the tax levy increase is an investment in police and fire services.
The Bloomington Police Department is currently authorized for 123 officers. That is low, based on national benchmarks for peer cities. The 2023 budget adds four police officers. This will decrease the amount of overtime officers are expected to work to meet basic staffing needs. Changes like this will allow officers to get the downtime they need outside of the difficult and stressful work they do. It also adds a dispatch training and quality coordinator position to address challenges with recruitment and retention.
Bloomington firefighters have operated on a volunteer or paid-on-call basis since 1947. The ideal number of active firefighters for Bloomington is 155. The Bloomington Fire Department has only 97 active firefighters. Insufficient staffing has adversely affected response times and the number of firefighters available to respond to calls. In 2021, BFD met its response-time goal only 67% of the time. Bloomington fire trucks frequently arrived on calls with only one or two firefighters. The 2023 budget adds three full-time firefighters in 2023 to address critical staffing issues and begin the transformation from a mainly paid-on-call, part-time department to a hybrid model of full-time and part-time firefighters. The City also recently received a Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) Grant that funds 18 additional firefighters for three years. They will be hired in 2023.
To give a more concrete idea of what the cost increase will be, let’s take a median-value home as an example. From 2022 to 2023, the median-valued home increased from $307,200 to $355,900, a growth of 15.9%. This increase in valuation means that the monthly cost of tax-supported services for the owner of a $355,900 median-valued home is $111 for 2023, a $10 increase from the 2022 monthly cost of $101.
I have said it before and I will say it again: without question, these annual budget discussions are the most important we have as a City. I know that a 9.15% levy increase is significant. I know inflation is eating up wage increases. I also know Council and City staff take the responsibility we have regarding taxing decisions very seriously.
Bloomington is the community it is today because for decades City leaders and residents understood the vital importance of investing in this community. The same holds true today. We invest in our priorities and we will continue to do so to make Bloomington an enduring and remarkable community where people want to be.
