Budget Forces City to Re-Think Center Pull-Out

Faced with a $5 million budget deficit, the city of Bloomington (Ill.) is re-thinking its 2006 pull-out from the McLean County comm center. Mayor Steve Stockton said it costs about $2 million to operate the city’s own comm center, a figure higher than anticipated. He also admitted to reporters that the expected improvement in performance hasn’t materialized, either. The city’s police and fire chiefs criticized the county comm center in the years before the pull-out, saying it didn’t provide sufficient service for the city. The city-county differences generated bad blood between the two entities, which could affect any future negotiations for Bloomington to re-joint the center. Moving back to the center will not necessarily solve the original problems of officer and firefighter safety that the city raised with county officials.