Comments on Advance Indiana™: Ballard Pushing Ahead With Plans To Auction Off City Hall

The building authority exists as a separate munici...

2012-08-09T19:09:19.008-05:00

The building authority exists as a separate municipal corporation because that was the city's way of circumventing the debt limitation imposed by the state constitution. Ditto the Capital Improvements Board, Airport Authority, Health & Hospital Corporation. On the unionization issue, even if the city were to privatize the operation of the CCB, it would still be required under the law to pay the prevailing wage rate for any construction/repair work performed if the cost of the work is above the statutory threshold. If you want to complain about the union work, look at big construction project like the new Wishard Hospital which enter into these labor agreements that only permit union contractors to bid on the work.

It shouldn't be a separate entity, whereby eac...

2012-08-09T18:30:44.915-05:00

It shouldn't be a separate entity, whereby each division pays its own rent. It should just be a department of the city with a budget like any other.

And, by the way, they don't belong to a union; it is not the same as the schools.

Some of their workers are not of the highest quality, but there is no way it can be done for less per square foot. The city-county building operates on a shoe-string. There are no frills.

MacReady, note that the money being laundered by h...

2012-08-09T13:20:13.144-05:00

MacReady, note that the money being laundered by having one government entity bill another has no net tax implications, where as hiring outsiders to do work almost always increases costs.
In the case of the building authority, they are charging for space at half of the prevailing rate for leased office space. The costs for commercial leased space is always based on demand and supply.
Selling the CC building to a commercial entity means that the city will end up paying commercial rates for the building lease and it is very unlikely that maintenance costs will decrease.

I will say this much in regard to Building Authori...

2012-08-09T06:21:08.841-05:00

I will say this much in regard to Building Authority: it's one of the best unknown things going in local government.

You can't so much as hammer a nail into a wall ANYWHERE on city property without having Building Authority do it for you. And that's at a cost easily 10 times what anybody else would charge you. Municipal entities grossly overcharging other municipal entities is a great way to essentially "launder" your way into an overinflated budget.

To an extent it's a union thing, but they don't pay their people much of anything so who knows where the money goes.

A similar thing happened in Perry Township. One of the schools wanted to expand their fitness area and update some wiring. A father of one of the children was a general contractor and did it for free. The Union-sponsored entity contractually obligated (entitled) to do ALL work on Perry Township schools was so pissed off they came in, updated some "code violations", redid it all over again, and sent the school a bill for $50k.

Perfect politics, put the city so far in debt and ...

2012-08-08T19:59:16.163-05:00

Perfect politics, put the city so far in debt and limit the revenue coming in so when the Democrats finally take the mayors office the Republicans will blame them for the city's financial problems. Eventually the city will have to raise taxes to pay for all of the horrid management decisions the Ballard (Barnes and Thornberg) administration has showered upon the city.