$60 Million Shortfall?
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels is going to announce the latest revenue collections for October tomorrow and the picture “ain’t pretty.”
I’m told not to be surprised if collections fell short by $60 million for the month. That’s on top of $250 million for the last quarter, bringing the state to a total shortfall of $310 million.
The question now is how will administration officials deal with the shortfall? They have held the line on spending, now they may have to look at serious cuts in government services and personnel. Stay tuned.
November 5th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Sell the toll roads. That will balance the budget. Oh wait, Mitch did that. I know, streamline FSSA (CPS/DCS), that will save us millions. Wait, Mitch did that. I know, switch to daylight savings time. That will bring us business from the East Coast. Wait, Mitch did that. I know, property tax caps, that will save taxpayers money in which they can re-invest into the economy(can you say Reaganomics). Wait, Mitch did that. Take some foreign economic junket and build foreign investment in Indiana, wait, Mitch did the a couple of times. Mitch is going nowhere
November 5th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
At least Mitch understands that creating new Indiana casinos licenses or shifting the geographical locations of existing licenses are not going to help this time.
Perhaps following through with license suspension of both northwest Indiana casino operator licenses for non performance could force the new licensee to make the large capital investment necessary to capture a larger share of Chicago's entertainment and lodging revenue.
If not, we always have taxes from legal marijuana and prostitution;)
November 5th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
With all seriousness, we should become the only state in the Midwest to have Right to Work Law.
The southern states are eating our lunch with large multinational investments that are creating thousands of jobs.
Our current laws have failed to protect worker rights or jobs. They have discouraged new investment and disenfranchised the rank and file worker.
Its time to take the global competition for jobs to a new level and go on the offense!!!!
November 5th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Map of Current Right To Work States
http://www.nrtw.org/rtws.htm
November 6th, 2009 at 3:29 am
That's an interesting argument for this problem, Nick. It's also incomplete, at least, and probably untrue.
I dind't vote for Mitch. Don't like him. But he seems to be trying everything reasonable in dealing with this continued recession. I'll give him credit.
But here's another suggestion: there are still departments in the State Office Building complex where employees are performing extremely sub-standard. A true management audit would, produce savings.
But please, Mitch–no more taxes. You've already done that. The sales tax increase was the wrong answer at the wrong time. No more.
November 6th, 2009 at 6:57 am
Foreign competition is de facto turning Indiana into a Right to Work state. Blaming Mitch for an economy besieged by elected politicians is a stupid thing to behold. As mentioned before, Indiana pension plans have been underfunded for decades and the market correction for the above mentioned politicians/thieves has probably left various Indiana plans many BILLIONS of dollars underfunded. Yet, we focus on a mere 60 million shortfall? Ending the closed shop in Indiana would help, ending Davis Bacon would shave more than 30% off of the cost of the new Wishard, 30% plus off the cost of these brain dead school building projects, and Mitch's bonus buildings to our parasite universities would probably save even more. Doing away with Davis Bacon would be a good first step because it removes a pusher for public construction projects, a pusher not noticed by dumb reporters, and not desiring of having any public light shed on their scams. Doing reasonable things requires some leadership and we don't have that in our corrupt legislature. They seem to wish to prop up every dead horse in the universe. Keeping closed union shops in Indiana speeds job losses so speeeding job losses is the Legislature's answer to job losses caused by so called free trade. If I am from China and wish to cherry pick industries to “compete” with in Indiana, I'd scout out the unionized sector first, target steel, auto, television mfg, appliances, etc. etc. Do you see the drift? Of course, China does not threaten our public sector unions…which is too bad since the public needs to get around to that task and extract them when they are parasitic as in ISTA.
November 6th, 2009 at 8:41 am
ISTA is the perfect example of why we need a Right To Work Law.
They have not done anything for there membership over the past decade except to spin taking lower compensation and benefits to a shrinking base of teachers as a good thing.
Many healthcare benefits have quietly been eliminated in the fine print of union negotiations as member costs have been raised.
The Teachers Retirement Fund has been underfunded by Billions for a decade and is currently living on life support from the state legislature on a daily basis.
The Teachers Union has allowed the universities to prey on K-12 teachers by maintaining a law that requires teachers to pay thousands of dollars for “continuing education” credits in order to get their teacher licenses renewed. The required classes for these credits have little substance and are a complete waste of time. Many are offered online with no real value except to speed payment and lower costs for the universities.
Teacher employment and compensation are driven more by student enrollment and long standing national labor laws that require equal and fair treatment of all workers regardless of union affiliation.
In fact joining the Indiana teachers union is not a requirement for employment in Indiana regardless what ISTA would like you to believe.
For $550 dollars a year in dues, you would think that you would get more results than a big media show around contract renewal time that ultimately doesn't change the outcome.
November 6th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Too, the really stupid excess pay for teacher's with “advanced” degrees when everyone should know that student academic achievement is not affected in the least by these worthless pieces of paper. Schools of mis-education are just cash cow colleges for the hustlers in so called higher education. We probably had better teachers when “normal” schools produced the teaching force-I think they were two years of learning. I see where ISTA is being sued and the stoops haven't bothered to even figure out how much money they mismanaged. Remember this about ISTA, that every legislator who took their money looked the other way and allowed the mismanagement to continue. Dan Clark and the rest of them are showing their true colors now.
November 6th, 2009 at 9:34 am
Who do you think is going to get the short end of this stick?
Hint: It starts with “T” not “U”.
2 school districts join suit against Indiana teachers union
At least two school districts have joined a class-action lawsuit seeking millions of dollars in health insurance credits owed to them by the Indiana State Teachers Union Insurance Trust.
http://www.indystar.com/article/20091106/LOCAL/...
November 6th, 2009 at 10:54 am
I think we need to immediately start looking at the salaries of anyone paid by tax dollars whose paycheck is bigger than the Mayor or the Governor's.
There is one school administrator for every three classrooms in at least two school districts closest to me. I bet we could save quite a bit of money statewide if we offered a choice of salary cut or layoff to every overpaid educrat in our state.
I promise there will be no shortage of well educated capable people who would work for $150k a year rather than $200k and up. Doncha think? Afterall, Charter Schools perform very well (in fact better) with far less funding.
Belt tightening is good for the soul. The government should be going through the same downsizing as their constituents. Our state should be proactive so we don't end up like Illinois or California.
November 6th, 2009 at 10:55 am
I forgot to add. You never hear them threaten to layoff administrators, do you? It's always teachers they threaten.
November 6th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Ok. I looked. What did I see? The salaries vary all over the map. The real question should be, “Are we getting a dollar's worth of value for each dollar of salary?” And, that needs be asked of every teacher as well. For the most part, and I think most folks realize this, the value is NOT there. The exchange is out of balance. And, it is so because it is not a free market exchange but a government forced monopoly run by incompetents, all 150 of them, aka, legislators. Education and the State, available from Liberty Press, explains the original lies of alleged market failure. But, the failure exists in government schools regardless whether you read a book or not. We don't have Real Education in Indiana even if our roundtable could read.
There is no need that I can see for laying off teachers. First survey the community to discover the % paid by private sector employees for their health care “insurance” and then legislate that % be applied, by law, to all the parasites in school systems. All systems of schools would then show great amounts of BLACK INK and no teachers would be out of a job. In estimate, taxes could be cut.
November 6th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Melyssa is right. Educrats are eating us alive. In Washington Twp, taxpayers threw a stink recently when their overfed Super proposed a board-backed salary increase. The result? A cut in the increase of nearly 50%. If only all school boards took their responsibilities so seriously in these tough times.
But please, Melyssa, stop with the charter school comparison. Their student bodies, by and large, are 40-50% better-prepared to take the standardized tests. They have proportionately fewer students who are difficult-to-educate (and therefore, their student bodies are usually much less expensive to educate).
Still, there are a good many charter schools, by the last statewide testing example, who perform no worse or better than many public schools.
Charters work for some folks. They don't work for everyone. Let's stop comparing them to public schools for performance-based issues. It's apples and hedgeapples.
November 6th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
I recently met a young teacher from an east side Charter School. She teaches 6th grade. She says it is very hard to maintain control with these kids and teach. She says they come to her with horrible skills. I'm basing what I say from what she tells me first hand.
Charter schools do more with less.
November 6th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Well, that's a nice story, Melyssa, and I'm sure she's telling you the truth. But the overwhelming majority of charters don't have student bodies like that.
November 6th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
I think we need to immediately start looking at the salaries of anyone paid by tax dollars whose paycheck is bigger than the Mayor or the Governor's.
There is one school administrator for every three classrooms in at least two school districts closest to me. I bet we could save quite a bit of money statewide if we offered a choice of salary cut or layoff to every overpaid educrat in our state.
I promise there will be no shortage of well educated capable people who would work for $150k a year rather than $200k and up. Doncha think? Afterall, Charter Schools perform very well (in fact better) with far less funding.
Belt tightening is good for the soul. The government should be going through the same downsizing as their constituents. Our state should be proactive so we don't end up like Illinois or California.
November 6th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
I forgot to add. You never hear them threaten to layoff administrators, do you? It's always teachers they threaten.
November 6th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Ok. I looked. What did I see? The salaries vary all over the map. The real question should be, “Are we getting a dollar's worth of value for each dollar of salary?” And, that needs be asked of every teacher as well. For the most part, and I think most folks realize this, the value is NOT there. The exchange is out of balance. And, it is so because it is not a free market exchange but a government forced monopoly run by incompetents, all 150 of them, aka, legislators. Education and the State, available from Liberty Press, explains the original lies of alleged market failure. But, the failure exists in government schools regardless whether you read a book or not. We don't have Real Education in Indiana even if our roundtable could read.
There is no need that I can see for laying off teachers. First survey the community to discover the % paid by private sector employees for their health care “insurance” and then legislate that % be applied, by law, to all the parasites in school systems. All systems of schools would then show great amounts of BLACK INK and no teachers would be out of a job. In estimate, taxes could be cut.
November 6th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
Melyssa is right. Educrats are eating us alive. In Washington Twp, taxpayers threw a stink recently when their overfed Super proposed a board-backed salary increase. The result? A cut in the increase of nearly 50%. If only all school boards took their responsibilities so seriously in these tough times.
But please, Melyssa, stop with the charter school comparison. Their student bodies, by and large, are 40-50% better-prepared to take the standardized tests. They have proportionately fewer students who are difficult-to-educate (and therefore, their student bodies are usually much less expensive to educate).
Still, there are a good many charter schools, by the last statewide testing example, who perform no worse or better than many public schools.
Charters work for some folks. They don't work for everyone. Let's stop comparing them to public schools for performance-based issues. It's apples and hedgeapples.
November 6th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
I recently met a young teacher from an east side Charter School. She teaches 6th grade. She says it is very hard to maintain control with these kids and teach. She says they come to her with horrible skills. I'm basing what I say from what she tells me first hand.
Charter schools do more with less.
November 6th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
Well, that's a nice story, Melyssa, and I'm sure she's telling you the truth. But the overwhelming majority of charters don't have student bodies like that.