How much has the city of Bloomington paid outside consultants for annexation?

The city of Bloomington has paid legal and financial consultants more than $1.2 million for their work on its annexation plan. Combined with a smaller recent contract for a land surveyor and more than $770,000 the city paid related to annexation in 2017, the city’s total annexation-related bill currently exceeds $1.4 million.

Just since the start of last year, those figures include nearly $333,000 in expenses from Reedy Financial Group and $250,000 from Indianapolis law firm Bose McKinney & Evans.

The figures exclude the value of work city officials themselves completed during the annexation and remonstrance periods.

To put those numbers in perspective, in total last year, the city had expenditures of $200 million, excluding its storm water, wastewater and water utilities.

More:Bloomington annexation fails in 5 of 7 areas

Mayor John Hamilton initially announced his plan to annex nine areas around the city in February 2017, but the process was interrupted by what was later determined to be an unconstitutional action of the state Legislature.

The mayor announced a continuation of the process in April 2021 and proposed adding eight of the same areas, leaving out one on the northeast that the city council had removed from consideration in 2017. After public input, the council last year removed another area on the city’s north side.

Following those changes, the mayor's proposal would have moved into the city limits about 8,200 acres and 14,300 residents from the unincorporated areas of the county. That meant the city’s population would have swelled near 100,000, and the city’s land area would have increased by about 54%.

Hamilton said the proposal aimed to “right-size” the city, which had not expanded its boundaries since 2004, despite significant growth around it. He also said the areas he targeted for annexation had, for many years, been envisioned as future city neighborhoods.

The plan received support from the Bloomington City Council, which approved the mayor’s plan with slight alterations by a 6-3 vote.

However, the city’s plan elicited significant opposition among residents in the areas targeted for annexation, some of whom told The Herald-Times that they did not want to pay additional property taxes for few, if any, added services they would find useful.

Hamilton:Annexation makes our entire community stronger

All three Monroe County commissioners, too, opposed the plan, primarily because it would have slowed the county government’s revenue growth, which, they said, would make it more difficult to fund some governmental activities and to tackle big challenges related to criminal justice.

Meanwhile, the city’s financial consulted projected that the city initially would incur expenses of up to $24 million related to an expansion of services, but by the fourth year after annexation also would see annexation-related revenues exceed expenditures by $4 million annually.

Consultant:Annexation to cost city of Bloomington $24M in first year

Many property owners in the targeted areas formally opposed the mayor’s plan by filing remonstrance petitions with the Monroe County Auditor’s Office during a three-month period that ended in early January. Auditor Catherine Smith on Feb. 23 announced that opponents had filed enough petitions to stop the annexation attempt in five of seven areas. Opponents in two other areas filed enough petitions to allow them to challenge the annexation in court.

The city, too, may file a lawsuit over a 2019 law that the mayor has called “unconstitutional” and which significantly increased the number of property owners who could formally oppose annexation by invalidating older annexation waivers. If the city challenged that law and prevailed in court, annexation would proceed in all but one area, based on data from the auditor and the city.

Breakdown of expenses

Contractual expenses the city has incurred from annexation:

2017

• Reedy Financial Group: $392,395.88
• Bose McKinney: $243,696.19
• Hirons and Co.: $56,270.91
• Jackson Group: $123,588.79
• Connor Reporting: $1,717.50
• Bledsoe Riggert: $7,064.00

2021-2022

• Reedy Financial Group: $332,639.98
• Bose McKinney: $250,237.80
• Bledsoe Riggert: $2,735.00

Total: $1,410,346.05

Boris Ladwig is the city government reporter for The Herald-Times. Contact him at bladwig@heraldt.com.