I Owe You and Apology
It’s not very often that I get the opportunity to be wrong, but I was. I made a really bad mistake the other day and need to atone for it. I pride myself on giving you accurate information and offering my own perspective on local and state events and then allowing you to draw your own conclusion as we engage in debate, but Saturday, I let you down.
I wrote a post that essentially said Marion County residents were staring down the gun of an $85 million tax increase as a result of the new taxing authority given to the Mayor and Council by the State. That number is not totally accurate.
This summer, taxpayers are not facing an $85 million tax increase. That number is closer to $170 million. How did I get that figure? In addition to the 0.5 increases in public safety tax, which would yield an estimated $85 million, there is another scheduled increase (0.1) in the county option income tax slated to go into effect July 1, which is another $17 million. Also, local governments can raise income taxes to offset the freeze in property taxes and that amounts to about another 0.4 increase. Take all those tenths of a percent and add it up and you get an estimated $170 million tax increase this year for Marion County residents.
Although there is some property tax relief on the way, you wont see it for a while. These tax increases go into effect this summer and your “rebate” won’t show up until later this year if you see it at all. The money from the rebates would come from expanded gaming, but the State and casinos have their own issues to work out. And depending on your mortgage company, you may not see anything at all.
And please note in all this $170 million in new taxes, you really aren’t getting much in new services. This is all to maintain what you have. You get some more court space and infrastructure, but I’ll be writing in a few days how we played the ultimate shell game to deal with jail overcrowding.
But until then, please accept my apology.
June 12th, 2007 at 5:38 am
Apology accepted, now please excuse me while I go throw up.
I think “Disgusted Citizen” two threads down had an excellent post which is worth repeating here:
Costs overruns for the Central Library [millions]; Lucas Stadium [millions] plus $10 million per year maintenance costs; City Market [half million]; Indianapolis airport expansion [millions]; multiple tax abatements to private developers [millions of dollars]. $500,000.00 for a Primary Election that was understaffed and disenfranchised voters in the county. Indianapolis is fourth in the nation with home foreclosures.
Mayor Peterson doesn’t see the need to downsize his administration to save millions. The city-County councilors want a pay increase but won’t vote for pay raises for law enforcement and new equipment. Homeowners’ have a 50% increase for property tax bill in the mail, and now a second tax increase for 85 Million dollar. The City’s AAA bond rating has dropped.
My! My! My! I thought the city was broke, and they just keep right on spending our money with like a blank check. Yes, we need an itemized budget in advance to see how our tax dollars will be spent.
June 12th, 2007 at 7:22 am
While I agree with the potential $85 million public safety fee (and I guess the $17 million increase though I don’t remember what it’s for) I think you are misleading readers on the rest of the $170 million.
There is no mandated property tax freeze. The rest of what you are talking about is an option for the city-county council to fund this year’s regular operating increases with income taxes rather than property taxes. It is an option that they would have to invoke by Aug. 1 and as far as I can tell they haven’t prepared a resolution or even considered the idea.
June 12th, 2007 at 7:27 am
Tax and Spend
Don’t forget property tax increases from trending.
Don’t forget scheduled water and sewer tax increases over the next decade.
Bart has no problem increasing our taxes and finding ways to spend it. I only wish he was equally good at realizing cost savings and reducing waste.
June 12th, 2007 at 7:28 am
There’s a lot of flailing around in the dark about taxation right now all over Indiana because the State hasn’t released certain needed approvals and percentages. Without the numbers from Mitch’s folk at the State, nobody can really proceed with calculation, collection or budgeting. Why the foot dragging at the Statehouse?
June 12th, 2007 at 8:24 am
The last time I checked, Bart, thank goodness, still only works for the city (if that isn’t bad enough!). Someone better save us if he gets to the State level.
June 12th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Wilson, I’m going to ask you since, no offense, you seem to be the mouthpiece of the local regime. What happened to all the savings from consolidation? I thought that was supposed to put more officers on the street? Okay, real simple. Hypothetically speaking, say IPD had 4 people in the pawn unit, and the MCSD had 4 people in their pawn unit. You merge, and suddenly you have 5 people doing the work that 8 used to do before? That doesn’t make sense. 4+4 does not equal 5.
Maybe if the CCC was doing any good with the money they already have, the State would have granted them more authority. For the State to give them a blank check to do what they please to raise taxes would be rewarding bad behavior in the worst way. Maybe if they had put more money towards public safety (the government’s #1 priority) in the first place they wouldn’t ‘NEED’ another one or two hundred trillion dollars or whatever they’re asking for this time. When Democrats rule the world and it’s burning to the ground, whose fault will it be then? The Martians? Daggum, enough is enough Wilson. Blind faith to any cause is just that, blind.
June 12th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
As Rex Early would say: “It’s a mighty thin pancake that doesn’t have two sides!”
June 12th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
As usual, Wilson didn’t answer the question at hand. For a guy with 3 computers and all day to monitor his RSS feeds (and I thought I didn’t have much of a life) you’d think there’d be a more substantial answer than a metaphor involving breakfast. There may be more than one side to the pancake, but only you can only add so much maple before you start wasting syrup.
June 13th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Like Charlie Brown’s teacher, “blah, blah, blah-blah, blah”, that is what is usually coming out of Wilson’s mouth, or fingers as the case may be here.
(Watch, he’ll attack this but still not answer the question.)
June 13th, 2007 at 11:15 am
Wilson, so are you saying that Bart Peterson is a crepe?
June 13th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Jason, maybe Wilson is saying that he is a WAFFLE!
June 14th, 2007 at 6:14 am
Wilson called Bart Peterson a WAFFLER! Shame on you Wilson, Jen is going to make you go sit in the corner for that.
June 14th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
It’s kind of humorous watching the nattering anonymous nobodies stroke each other …