We’ve had to do something with Indiana Barrister this morning that normally we don’t like to do, delete comments.

One comment was just over the top and another, was included enough factual errors about an elected official that it warranted taking down.

At Indiana Barrister we pride ourselves on promoting free speech and spirited, yet civil, debate which is why we try not to mess with comments and let the free marketplace of ideas reign, but every once in a while, we have to exercise some discretion.

We don’t do it often, but we will when necessary.

Now go out and engage in debate and behave yourselves.

A veteran reporter once told me that if you stick around a place long enough you will eventually see everything.   Well that statement was definitely true at Monday night’s City-County Council meeting.  Here’s what I witnessed.

• Libertarian Ed Coleman voting with Joanne Sanders against eliminating the position of Telecom Director.
• Democrats voting against the Indy Go budget.
• A Republican joining Democrats to vote against spending $290,000 on early redistricting.
• Bi-partisan votes for and against almost every budget item, except the Marion County Public Library budget.   That got unanimous support.
• Me agreeing with Democrat Jon Easter that the people who are opposed to the Wishard referendum should stop whining about the media and get organized.

Politics really does make strange bedfellows.

By now you know the City-County Council passed the Mayor’s $1.22 billion spending plan.  There’s more money for public safety, fewer dollars for parks and the there is $16 million in the rainy day fund.  No big shocker and most measures passed with bi-partisan support.

However one point of contention Monday night that did somewhat surprise me was that my Democratic friends made a big fuss over anti-crime grant funding.  They say the city was supposed to have spent $15 million on crime prevention  since 2008, but instead only spent $7 million.

They accused the Ballard administration of violating the intent of the public safety tax ordinance which they say called for spending $5 million per year for three years on crime prevention programs.  Note, despite all the words and talk of crime prevention, such language was never included in the ordinance when it was passed back in 2007.  You can read the actual ordinance yourself.

I can understand my Democratic friends being upset but all this could have been avoided had they written the ordinance to guarantee the funding go for crime prevention.   Maybe they will know better for next time.

And while we’re on the subject, maybe someone will raise a fuss about the Marion County Courts that took public safety tax money that was “intended” to create an extra criminal court to deal with jail overcrowding, but instead went for an additional family court.

Indiana’s 7th District Congressman Andre Carson has come under fire for voting against an amendment that would deny funding to ACORN, the controversial community action group.

Congress voted to deny funding to ACORN after an investigation showed ACORN workers giving tax advice to undercover conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute.

I am no big fan of ACORN and Carson and I have our philosophical differences, but he may be right on this one, even if for the wrong reason.   A valid argument can be made that when the House voted to deny ACORN funding it was passing what’s called a “bill of attainder.”

A bill of attainder is legislation that specifically targets a group or individual to be punished without a trial.   Such legislation is unconstitutional under Article 1, Sections 9 and 10.  The House bill expressly prohibits any federal funds or contract going to ACORN.  Thus, the potential for unconstitutionality.

Now the flip-side of that argument is that there is no right to federal funding and therefore ACORN is not being punished.

Of course all this could have been avoided had Congress  simply passed  the legislation without mentioning ACORN’s name and this wouldn’t be an issue.  But these are also the same people who essentially tried to do the same thing in the Terry Schiavo case a few years back, so why would I think they would have learned anything since then.

On Monday night, the Indianapolis City-County Council will take up Mayor Greg Ballard’s second budget, $1.22 billion, and by all indications much of it should pass (no big shocker) but with overwhelming bi-partisan support.  I make this assumption based on committee votes.   Here is a breakdown.

• Administration & Finance – 7-0.
• Public Works – 7-0.
• Metropolitan Development Commission  – 7-0.
• Community Affairs – 7-0.
• Library – 7-0.
• Airport – 6-1.
• Indy Go – 6-1.
• Health & Hospital – 7-0.
• Police – 5-2.
• Fire – 7-0.
• Sheriff – 5-1.  (The Committee was split, party lines, over taking $2.5 million from the jail bed fund and using it to shore up the Sheriff’s pension fund.  However only Bill Oliver cast the sole “no” vote on the entire budget.

The budgets where Councilors were more divided, and that was bi-partisan was the Capital Improvement Board budget which passed 4-3 with Democrat Jackie Nytes voting “yes” and Republican Bob Lutz voting “no.”

The Parks and Recreations vote was the only area truly split along party lines.  Republicans voted for it and Democrats against.   Point of clarification, Indiana Barrister had previously wrote that all three Democrats on the Committee voted against an amendment that would have allowed for city employees to compete for privatization contract.  While all three Democrats did vote against the Parks budget, saying it did not offer enough money for Parks, only Bill Oliver voted against the privatization amendment.

Perhaps the biggest point of contention in this entire was over a position that I’m willing to bet 95 percent of the city had no idea existed, the Director of the Telecom and Video Services Agency.   Currently the position is held by Rick Multra.  The original intent of the agency was to regulate right-of-ways used by cable franchises, however many of those functions have were transferred to the state when the the Legislature passed the Telecommunications Act of 2006.   An amendment was introduced to eliminate that position, however several Councilors expressed concerns about the “institutional memory” of the position Multra argued his office brought in more money than it spent.   The city countered  however that the position is not what it was and many of the TVSA functions (auditing) can be done cheaper. The amendment was defeated but I would not be surprised to see it come back up on floor Monday night.

Overall, from what I have seen, this budget process has been very civil, low key and less contencious than the last couple of years.  Why? Several reasons: there is less money to fight over, we’ve gone through one year of this process and all parties are familiar with the Ballard administration’s style.  And third, the Ballard people actually know what they’re doing when it comes to crafting a budget and dealing with bricks and mortar issues.  After all, they did take what was projected to be a $200 million shortfall in 2012 and turn it into a $50 million surplus.

Not bad.  Now we can turn our attention to the smoking ban Democrats are going to try to bring back once the budget is passed.

Unless you were paying close attention this week, there were three items in the news this week regarding local government which I think further illustrate the inevitable change that is coming to Indiana.

In Marion County, the Franklin Township Board voted 6-0-1 to move forward with fire consolidation.

Greenwood and White River Township are looking at a consolidation that when done would make them one of the larger municipalities in Indiana.

And for the first time, Township government budgets are coming under somewhat  real scrutiny because of a new law that gives County-Councils non-binding review over their budgets.

You can see an analysis of the township budgets here.  Marion County Twp Analysis If you look closely at the numbers you will see that many of the Townships sit on millions in operational fund balances and give out very little poor relief. That strikes me as odd for two reasons,  we are in one of the worst economic slowdowns since the great depression. Second, during the last legislative session, township officials bemoaned how much poor relief they had administer, give out, but as you can see by the analysis  the word of the day is large fund balance.

And for the record the analysis was presented by the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce to the City-Council and no Township officials showed up to dispute the figures.

And even stepping away from poor relief and looking simply at fire service I wonder how some of these departments are going to survive. Pike Township is seeing a close to $6 million drop in its fire fighting levy.  Lawrence is losing 1.4 million in its levy.  Wayne Township is increasing its fire budget from $21.1 million to $23 million.  I personally would like to know how they pulled this off in an age of property tax caps.

I bring all this up because we are a little more than three months away from the full impact of property tax caps.  And if large cities like Indianapolis, Ft. Wayne, Evansville and Carmel are going to have difficulties managing their budgets with less revenue, I can only imagine what it is going to be like for these smaller, and in many cases less useful,  units of government.

Okay guys,  I’m compiling my list of who is running for what.  We know it’s only going to get worse before it gets better so feel to pile on right now.   Whether it’s the U.S. Senate or some useless township office, it doesn’t matter.  Have at it.

The Indiana Attorney General’s Office says the recent decision by the Indiana Court of Appeals that the state’s voter ID law is unconstitutional should not have an impact on upcoming  local referendum.

The Court ruled Indiana’s Voter ID law violated the state constitution because it treated  citizens who voted in person differently than those who voted absentee.

Greg Zoeller’s office says the ruling has no practical effect until it is certified and that cannot happen until the time for petitioning for a rehearing, transfer or review has expired, unless all parties ask the decision be certified and that is not likely to happen before the November 3 election.

Because of that, Zoeller’s office does not plan to ask the State Supreme Court to stay the order.

There are several referendums on the ballot in Marion County this November: Wishard Hospital, Beech Grove, Franklin and Perry Township schools.

A few big items to report this afternoon.

An Indiana appellate court has struck down the state’s Voter ID law on the basis that it violates the state constitution.   The Court held the law did not treat all voters uniformly because it required ID for voting in-person, but not absentee nor nursing home residents if their nursing home is also a polling place.  Governor Mitch Daniels called the ruling “preposterous” and example of “judicial arrogance.”   He said the state would appeal and predicted the ruling would be overturned.   A similar challenge at the federal level was unsuccessful.

You can read a copy of the opinion here.

Also making some news today, both the City of Indianapolis and the State of  Indiana are looking at the possibility of Eli Lilly having to payback millions in tax incentives and abatements.  Lilly received more than $1.6 billion in tax incentives and abatements in exchange for promising to create new jobs.  Lilly fell short of its goal and is now preparing to layoff employees.  Both city and state officials say they are investigating whether Lilly will have to give back or lose its tax breaks and incentives since the jobs never materialized.

And finally City Controller Dave Reynolds says his office will be able to shore a nearly $3 million hole in the Sheriff Department’s pension fund.  The fund lost money due to the financial market collapse in 2008.  Reynolds says an amendment will be introduced tonight to transfer the funds from the Sheriff’s operating budget and into the the pension fund.

Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Tony Bennett says the state is ready to step in and take over under performing schools.

Bennett’s comments followed the release of  state ISTEP test scores. While ISTEP results  showed statewide pass rates of 70% for English, 71%  for Math, 62% for Science, and 59% for Social Studies, nearly 40% of students  failed to pass either one or both portions of the new exam.

In addition, test results tend to fall, the higher the grade level.  English test score pass rates went from 74% in the third grade to 65% in the 8th grade.  Math test score pass rates went from 72% in the third grade to 67%.  Test results also dropped in science and social studies.

Some educators have complained the pass ISTEP test was too difficult and it left some students crying.  Bennett says while his office addressed some inherent problems in the last exam, they are not going to compromise standards and lower the bar.

He did add however that schools should be allowed to operate in a “charter-like” environemnt and have the freedom and flexibility necessary to advance student achievement.