Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton laid out his administration’s 2022 budget proposal in a press conference with reporters Friday, emphasizing the budget’s plans to add to the city’s public safety workforce and raise city employee pay.
The city expects to spend more than $106 million — excluding transit and utilities — which represents a 12.1% increase from the year prior. That increase was, according to city documents, supported by the more than $10 million the city received in funding from various federal government programs, such as the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act or the American Rescue Plan Act.
The budget will require approval from the Bloomington City Council. A vote from that body will likely take place in October.
City council members Matt Flaherty, Isabel Piedmont-Smith, Kate Rosenbarger and Stephen Volan announced a series of recommendations for various budget items in a press release. Some of those recommendations include investments for infrastructure for pedestrian and bicycle lanes, as well as initiatives aimed to decrease homelessness in the city.
“As council members, we are elected to do what is best for residents of Bloomington,” Volan said in the release. “We will not be able to support the 2022 budget unless it meaningfully reflects progress toward our City’s publicly-adopted priorities.”
The public safety package in Hamilton’s proposed budget would create 17 new public safety positions, some of which are police positions dedicated to community care. Additionally, it would provide a one-time $250,000 recruitment budget for the Bloomington Police Department.
The budget would also provide a $500 lump-sum bonus to most full-time city employees who worked during the pandemic. Mayor Hamilton said he intentionally chose a flat rate for the bonus.
“It was specifically chosen to be a flat amount so that it’s a higher percentage for lower-income employees,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton said the bonus was made possible partially through the American Rescue Plan Act, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden earlier this year.
Many city employees could also see a pay increase of 2.75% as a cost-of-living adjustment in 2022, should the budget pass. Hamilton said this adjustment is more than the typical 2% adjustment of years past.
“This is the first time it’s going to be different from that,” Hamilton said. “This year, there were really two factors. One was that inflation is substantially higher. It’s around 5% or more right now year over year.”
