Saying he wanted to “trim the fat and cut to the bone,” Marion County Sheriff Frank Anderson tonight submitted a new budget request to the City-County Council, $19 million smaller than his original.
Anderson’s original budget request was more than $111 million. The most recent was nearly $93 million. While still $7 million more than what the mayor’s office had budgeted, $85 million, it is still only slightly larger than last year’s total request, $91 million.
Part of the reason for the $19 million increase was part misunderstanding and part overestimation. Anderson’s office thought there was a new court coming on line and so his office budgeted accordingly. In addition several new vehicle purchases have been put on hold. However a good chunk of the savings came from deferred payments to vendors.
Anderson says his original budget request was put together by his staff and he allowed the division chiefs to make the budget proposal, however he had to go back make sure everyone had cut as much as possible.
Anderson says he is optimistic that he’ll be able to function with the new budget request. And Public Safety Director Scott Newman says the two sides are very close to reaching a settlement figure to fund the office. One of the bigger points of contention is the cost per inmate at the County Jail. The city-comptroller’s office estimated the figure at $107 per inmate. The Sheriff’s office puts the figure at about $58.
A final vote on the budget will take place on September 22.
Marion County Sheriff Frank Anderson takes his budget before the City-Council Public safety Committee. Anderson will likely argue against proposed cuts today, saying they will harm public safety and result in early releases from the jail.
Of course this is also the same Sheriff whose original budget request was $111 million. It’s $86 million now.
And this is also the same Sheriff whose last budget was underfunded by $4 million because he failed to take into account salary increases that his office negotiated and the Council had to bail him out Monday night.
And I thought Lawrence Mayor Paul Ricketts had some explaining to do.
As I sit here with martini in hand and cigar in mouth I am wondering what was going through the heads of my Democratic City-County Council friends during last night’s meeting.
Reportedly they met with County Chairman Ed Treacy prior to the Council meeting. According to my sources, Treacy encouraged them to do what they could to slow down the budget process until November in an effort to embarrass Mayor Greg Ballard and the Republicans.
The line of attack apparently was to question a proposal that would have transferred $47 million in city funds to make up for shortfalls in a number of fund balances. The proposal went through the Administration and Finance Committee. Democrats questioned the move saying it went against transparency in government and circumvented the Council committee process.
I would buy that argument had Democrats not done the same thing back in 2005. Democrats moved around $38 million to shore up multiple shortfalls and used the Administration and Finance Committee to do the exact same thing. Both Councilors Joanne Sanders and Jackie Nytes, critics of Monday night’s proposal, both voted for the funds transfer.
Am I the only person in this town who remembers this stuff? I understand the Council is a political, as well as a governmental, body and politics is part of the job. But I don’t see how my Democratic friends can take Ed Treacy’s advice in this arena and hope to accomplish anything. All it does is feed into the dissent I keep hearing about with Treacy’s leadership of the party and the possible coup that might be coming.
After sitting for an hour and listening to the arts community cry bloody murder about proposed cuts in funding, I decided to go check and see how much they actually get from the taxpayers. Back in May the City-County Council passed an ordinance giving the arts groups more than $1.5 million. Here’s a breakdown of what each organization received. The number in parenthesis is how much of the grant makes up their operating budget.
American Pianist Association – $35,000 (2.27%)
Art With a Heart – $10,000 (4.32%)
Asante Children’s Theatre – $10,000 (4.32%)
Big Car Media – $3,000 (4.99%)
Children’s Museum of Indianapolis – $85,000 (1.04%)
Claude McNeal Production – $3,000 (0.88%)
Clowes Memorial Hall Butler University – $41,000 (1.28%)
Dance Kaleioscope – $56,000 (4.77%)
Eteljorg Museum of American Indian Western Art – $85,000 (2.22%)
Encore Vocal Arts – $10,000 (11.34%)
Festival Music Society – $7,000 (4.48%)
Footlite Musicals – $5,000 (0.94%)
Freetown Village – $40,500 (26.22%)
Gregory Hancock Dance Theatre – $16,000 (4.48%)
Harrison Center for the Arts – $12,000 (2.82%)
Heartland Truly Moving Pictures – $20,000 (0.61%)
Indiana Historical Society – $13,000 (0.13%)
Indiana Repertory Theatre – $85,000 (1.93%)
Indiana State Museum Foundation – $61,000 (0.55%)
Indianapolis Art Center – $62,000 (3.04%)
Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra – $44,000 (7.37%)
Indianapolis Children’s Choir – $35,000 (2.75%)
Indianapolis Civic Theatre – $49,000 (3.10%)
Indianapolis Museum of Art – $85,000 (0.53%)
Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art – $9,000 (2.02%)
Indianapolis Opera – $71,000 (2.91%)
Indianapolis Symphonic Band – $9,000 (19.21%)
Indianapolis Symphonic Choir – $85,000 (0.86%)
Indianapolis Symphonic Orchestra – $71,000 (2.91%)
Indianapolis Theatre Fringe Festival – $10,000 (2.70%)
IndyChoruses – $3,000 (3.16%)
InterAction Theater – $8,000 (15.81%)
International Violin Competition of Indianapolis – $40,000 (3.90%)
Madame Walker Theatre Center – $15,500 (0.99%)
Motus Dance Theatre – $5,000 (8.60%)
Music for All – $27,5000 (0.50%)
New World Youth Orchestras – $8,000 (4.09%)
Philharmonic Orchestra of Indianapolis – $16,000 (6.36%)
Phoenix Theatre – $40,000 (8.06%)
Pike Performing Arts Center – $6,000 (1.72%)
President Benjamin Harrison Foundation – $5,000 (0.85%)
Primary Colours – $7,000 (10.50%)
ShadowApe Theatre Company – $4,000 (7.02%)
Storytelling arts of Indiana – $31,000 (11.71%)
Summer Stock Stage – $3,000 (4.22%)
VSA arts of Indiana – $52,000 (4.23%)
Young Audiences of Indiana – $62,000 (3.55%)
As you can see, most of what these organizations get from the city makes up a small portion of their actual budgets. On average the city funds about 4.6% of the operating budgets of these organizations. If they are going to go out of business over what amounts to basically an average 1.5% budget cut then maybe they should spend a little less time on art and more on math.
It looks like the Marion County Township Assessors will get a few more months to hold on to their jobs. City-Council President Bob Cockrum told me tonight that funding for the township assessors will be restored.
Mayor Greg Ballard had hoped to save $3 million by eliminating the funding to the offices, however Cockrum said many Councilors wanted to wait until after the November referendum on whether the the offices should be eliminated.
Funding will be restored to about 95 percent of last year’s budgets, just like other city and county agencies. That would reduce the city’s projected fund balance from $4 million to about $1 million. Cockrum added though he would not rule out possible budget cuts which force the township assessors to engage in a “functional” consolidation by being forced to share resources.
If Monday night’s Indianapolis City-County Council meeting was any indication, this going to be a long two weeks toward getting a budget done.
Monday was the public hearing so the public got to speak. Most of them complained about cuts to arts programs. I can honestly say there were more people there than usual.
The Republicans and Democrats also got to arguing over a $47 million adjustment to the 2008 budget. They bickered over a proposal that would have funded things like rising fuel and unpaid for raises in the Sheriff’s Department.
Since the ordinance funded multiple-agencies, Democrats complained it should have been broken down into separate ordinances, however Republicans argued it was necessary for efficiency and to provide a more accurate baseline for the 2009 budget. They also said the measure passed unanimously out of the Administration and Finance Committee. Although Democrats said the measure set a bad precedent and went against Mayor Greg Ballard’s goal of transparent government.
The meeting lasted nearly four hours.
As the saying goes, there are two things you don’t want to see made, laws and sausage. The only difference is I can eat the sausage when it’s done.
Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Jill Long Thompson says contrary to some Internet and broadcast reports, rumors of her campaign’s demise in Southern Indiana are grossly exaggerated.
JLT was responding to Internet news stories and plain old fashion rumor-mongering that her campaign is cutting back and has no real presence in Southern Indiana, a crucial part of the state in the upcoming election.
“She’s going to get her a– beat,” noted one prominent southern Indiana Democrat who asked not to be identified. “It’s going to take more than one clever TV spot to beat Mitch Daniels. Evan Bayh, Frank O’Bannon and Joe Kernan all had a presence here. She’s only hitting the big TV markets. She’s missing the heart of southern Indiana.”
Another long-time established Democrat said, “It’s sad. Dennie Oxley has [a] natural appeal in Southern Indiana, but they don’t appear to recognize it. The arrogance of her staff is appalling. [Mitch Daniels], the most unpopular Governor in my lifetime, is getting an easy free ride.”
JLT disputed that type of criticism today saying her campaign is running strong in all 92 counties. She said she is campaigning hard in Southern Indiana. And cited her recent trip to the area as evidence. She admitted though she has cut back on some staff in the area, hoping to piggy back on some of the Barack Obama Presidential campaign’s efforts.
The latest poll shows Mitch Daniels with an 18-point lead over JLT. JLT disputes that poll, saying her internal numbers show her just slightly behind, but still within reach of victory.
Since the city won’t be hiring 100 new police officers anytime soon, you might be wondering where your public safety tax money went that was supposed to hire them? $38 million of the tax increase went to IMPD, $10 million of that was supposed to hire new cops. Here’s a breakdown of how it was spent.
$13 million was spent on overtime costs.
$8.8 million was spent on contractual salary increases.
$1 million was spent on legal settlements.
$15.7 million was spent on paying off tax anticipation warrants (short-term borrowing)
I told you people there was nothing in the ordinance that said money had to be spent on new cops. I really do hate being right all the time.
The federal government is bailing out Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
The federal government may bail out the Big Three automakers next year.
The federal government already bailed out Bear Stearns.
There’s a good chance the airlines will ask for a bail out.
With all these bailouts of all these industries, why don’t we just go ahead and declare ourselves a socialist country and get it over with right now.
And I also have to laugh that if you as individual asked for a bailout, you would be told to go pull yourself by your bootstraps. If you own a mutli-billion dollar corporation and made bad business decisions, the mice will beat a path to your door.
