Mayor Greg Ballard is firing back at comments made by Marion Co. Prosecutor Terry Curry asserting that the City is facing a public safety funding crisis. Ballard tells Fox59 News that crime is down in Indianapolis. With the exception of the current year, he says the murder rate had been below 100 for the last three consecutive years, and that crime is down 10%, while violent crimes are down 5%. City-County Councilor Mary Moriarty Adams (D) insists that higher taxes are needed. For the record, the Adams household collects four government paychecks. Adams collects her salary as a City-County Councilor, as well as a check for her full-time job working for the county assessor's office. Her husband collects both a retirement check as a sheriff's deputy and a salary as a sheriff's department official. Suffice it to say that she could give a damn less how much higher taxes affect your wallet. She should be barred from serving on the Public Safety Committee because of her obvious conflict of interest due to her husband's job.
I would highly encourage you to check out some numbers fellow blogger Pat Andrews has put together showing that the City under Ballard has about $100 million more with which to work than former Mayor Bart Peterson. The Peterson administration handed Ballard the bonus of added income tax receipts from the 65% increase in the local income tax. At the same time, property tax reform adopted at the state level removed nearly $100 million in property tax expenditures earmarked annually for child welfare services, along with a half billion dollars in unfunded pension obligations to pay the pensions of retired police officers like Councilor Adams' husband that cost the City tens of millions annually to pay down. She also takes a look at all those additional dollars flowing to the CIB which appear to show that they have had little impact in drawing additional tourism dollars to Indianapolis. Without higher taxes and expanded state subsidies from the PSDA, city revenues have barely fared better than they would have had they grown at the rate of inflation.
See video after the jump.
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6 comments:
-I think the answer to the public safety budget crisis could be found by a forensic audit of all activities of Frank Straub as Public Safety Director, especially all of the irregularities with the Frank G. Straub Regional Operations Center boondagle at Eastgate!
http://advanceindiana.blogspot.com/2013/01/impds-18-million-operations-center.html
-did Ballard happen to also mention the moon is made of cheese?
There has been a lot of talk about the Public Safety Budget recently, I have begun digging into the budget info on the City Of Indianapolis website. This is public information garnered from www.indygov.org All numbers are in MILLIONS. One of the big concerns has been the large growth of the DPS office. While these numbers could be of some concern, they pale compared to the information which will follow. The DHS has also become a growth industry in the budget. DPS DHS2006-12008-7.4 4.82009-2.8 5.12010-7.6 7.32011-4.8 13.4 Mayors Office-4.3 pretty consistently Reference, in 2011IMPD-201IFD-140MCSD-103 BackgroundOn December 31, 2006, the IPD ceased to exist. It was reformed into the IMPD, which was IPD combined with the law enforcement components of the MCSD. The MCSD remained to morph into the MCSO, which would remain as constituionaly mandated by the State of Indiana, to carry out the consitutional requirements of a county sheriff. Approximately 400 Merit Deputies left the MCSD to become part of the IMPD. IPD had around 1200 officers, thus the IMPD became a force of 1600. The IMPD handles patrol and investigation in the City of Indianapolis, which is Marion County, minus the excluded cities of Beech Grove, Lawrence, Speedway, etc. Now the budget numbers Agency 2004 2005 2006 2008 2009 2010 2011IPD/IMPD 116 120 107 187 187 208 201MCSD/MCSO 85 87 100 93 93 108 103 Obviously, the IMPD budget should grow, with the addition of 400 officers. I don't know what the average compensation would need to be with salary, insurance, benefits, pension, equipement, but let's conservatively guesstimate 90,000. 400 x 90,000= 36,000,000 This is obviously, less than the growth in the IMPD budget, maybe those number are too conservative. But where is the corresponding drop in the MCSD budget. In fact, there was a minimal drop followed by a growth exceeding prior budgets. Links to see for yourself: 2006 COI Budgethttp://www.indy.gov/eGov/City/OFM/Documents/Budget/2006/DPS.pdf 2006 Marion County Budgethttp://www.indy.gov/eGov/City/OFM/Documents/Budget/2006/CountyPublicSafety2006revisedAug12.pdf 2011 COI Budgethttp://www.indy.gov/eGov/City/OFM/Documents/Budget/2011/2011%20Council%20Adopted%20Budget%20Book.pdf
Marine Mayor Ballard can "fire back" all he wants.
The FACTS are, crime is up. The perception of crime is up. Homicides are not nearly the only "crime" that occurs in this city.
Ask the hundreds of people who's homes and/or vehicles are violated by break-ins. Ask the people who have been robbed. Ask the people who have been physically assaulted. Ask the women who have been raped.
The FACT is, Ballard is more concerned about spending money on soccer fields, hotels, parking garages, TIF's, bicycle paths, etc. than he is on public safety.
You can't run from facts, Mr. Mayor.
ask those who have seen riots in their neighborhoods from inner-city thug/murderers!
The FACT is, Ballard is more concerned about spending money on soccer fields, hotels, parking garages, TIF's, bicycle paths, etc. than he is on public safety.
You can't run from facts, Mr. Mayor.
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