Parking meter fund spending for 2025 gets cut by $250K – The B Square

Aside from the petition that challenged the 2025 city budget, the Bloomington city council’s adoption of its 2025 spending plan a couple of weeks ago was relatively quiet.

The one wrinkle was an amendment to the budget made the same night (Oct. 9) as it was adopted—to cut $250,000 in spending from the parking meter fund.

The parking meter fund receives revenue from about 1,400  parking meters that are installed in downtown Bloomington. The rate is $1 per hour.

The $250,000 that was cut from parking meter fund expenditures has in the past funded grants to nonprofit groups that are working to address the problem of homelessness.

The budget amendment was put forward by councilmember Matt Flaherty. He did not want to defund the grant program—he just didn’t want the money to come from the parking meter fund.

State law regulates the ways that parking meter revenue can be spent. Outreach grants to nonprofits that are working on the issue of homelessness is not one of the uses that is on the list.

Flaherty’s amendment had unanimous support on the council as well as from city controller Jessica McClellan, who is handling her first annual budget, since taking over the controller’s office, after Kerry Thomson was sworn in as mayor at the start of the year.

On Oct. 9, Flaherty put it like this: “This is not meant in any way to be a judgment of whether the downtown outreach grants program is worthwhile of funding.” He added, “It could be funded from other sources. I just don’t think the parking meter fund is an appropriate revenue source and fund.”

State law lists out the possible uses of a parking revenue fund by a municipality:

(1) the purchase price, rental fees, and cost of installation of the parking meters;
(2) the cost of maintenance, operation, and repair of the parking meters;
(3) incidental costs and expenses in the operation of the parking meters, including the cost of clerks and bookkeeping;
(4) the cost of traffic signal devices used in the municipality;
(5) the cost of repairing and maintaining any of the public ways, curbs, and sidewalks where the parking meters are in use, and all public ways connected with them in the municipality;
(6) the cost of acquiring, by lease or purchase, suitable land for offstreet parking facilities to be operated or leased by the municipality;
(7) the principal and interest on bonds issued to acquire parking facilities and devices;
(8) the cost of improving and maintaining land for parking purposes and purchasing, installing, and maintaining parking meters on that land;
(9) the cost of providing approved school crossing protective facilities, including the costs of purchase, maintenance, operation, and repair, and all other incidental costs; and
(10) the cost of maintenance and operation of a municipally owned park where parking meters are located.

In her comments, McClellan said about the amendment, “We have no argument with it.” She added,” We will look for an appropriate place to put this [downtown outreach grant] program and come back to you in 2025 with our suggestions.”

Both Flaherty and McClellan noted that the habit of funding the homelessness grant program out of the parking revenue fund had been the established past practice from the prior administration.

Four years ago, responding to an emailed B Square question about the parking meter fund as a revenue source for homelessness outreach programs, Mike Rouker, who was city attorney at the time, wrote:

The City has been utilizing a portion of its parking meter revenue to help assist those experiencing homelessness for several years. State law permits the use of parking meter revenue to assist with maintaining public ways and to assist with the maintenance of a municipally owned park. Homelessness creates a myriad of challenges within Bloomington’s right-of-way and parks, and we have utilized meter revenue to address those concerns so that these public spaces may be safely used by all members of our community.

Previously, the Police Department was responsible for utilizing and expending these funds to help maintain Bloomington’s right-of-way, but the Community and Family Resources Department (CFRD) actually has more expertise to administer and grant these funds to address homelessness within our public spaces. So for 2021, the administration has proposed that CFRD take over this responsibility.

The change from the police department to CFRD as the department administering the parking meter fund money for the grant funding can be seen,  when the operational budget numbers from the city’s online financial system are charted out. [Shared Google Sheet]

Here’s a breakdown of the grant amounts from the parking meter fund, that different nonprofits have received since 2018:

The parking meter fund could have easily handled the $250,000 expenditure. The estimated 2024 year-end-fund balance for the parking meter fund is around $4.2 million. The planned spending in 2025 out of parking meter fund revenue is $1 million more than budgeted revenue. That would still leave the parking meter fund with a balance of $3.3 million at the end of 2025.

The 2025 budgeted revenue for the parking meter fund is $3,123,737 which reflects an increase in budgeted numbers for the first time since 2020. Since 2020, the year of when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, Bloomington has each year budgeted $2,445,472 in revenue for the parking meter fund.

That’s despite the clear recovering trend. By the end of the year in 2024, through most of October, the year-end total parking meter revenue projects out to around $2.8 million. That would match the 2019 revenue total.