Oct
18
10:19 AM
A Little Gossip, A Little Chat
Hey guys, after being out of town for a few days, I’ve managed to get caught up on a few items here and there. Some you are quite aware of, others maybe not so much. As always, we are more than happy to print the gossip, rumor and blatant innuendo that we can confirm from two or more sources. Enjoy.
- Marion County coffers may be in for a bit of sticker shock as more commercial property tax appeals move their way through the system. The assessment on the M & I building was reportedly lowered from $71 million to about $20 million. A few more of those and local governments are going to really be feeling the pinch.
- Speaking of property taxes, Indiana lawmakers will take up putting property tax caps into the Constitution when the convene in January, however I’m hearing the opposition is not as much based on party lines as it is geographical ones. Lawmakers from cities and suburbia are more like to vote for the caps, while those from rural areas tend to oppose them. Stay tuned.
- For all the talk about the failures of modernizing FSSA, one thing I don’t hear is that even in Governor Mitch Daniels’ admission that the system didn’t work, the taxpayers saved $145 million. If that’s failure, I’d hate to see success. In addition, for anyone thinking this will translate into a political issue, I doubt it seriously. I don’t see people who pay taxes getting too excited over the plight of those that generally don’t.
- Opponents of the Wishard referendum continue to make their case against the proposal. However, as I was told following a presentation on Saturday at the Marion County Alliance of Neighborhoods, that although the opponents have raised some legitimate concerns, they haven’t done enough to move voters into the definite “no” column.
- The conspiracy theorists are at it again over the Capital Improvement Board’snews that it may not need to borrow $9 million from the state due to a better financial picture. They say the CIB is just clearing the way to provide a bailout to the Indiana Pacers. My conversations with sources close to the negotiation tell me there will be no wholesale bailout and the city will definitely get something in return for the taxpayers if any assistance is offered.
- Remember how I told you a while back that Eli Lilly may lose some of its tax abatements because it is laying off employees. Well I’m hearing the same thing may be getting ready to happen over at Simon Corporate headquarters. Sources say the Simons layoff employees in such a way that it doesn’t have to report the figures to the state, however in the aggregate those numbers do add up. Watch for this one folks.
- Fundraising in the 5th District looks pretty interesting. Although incumbent Dan Burton raised $152,000 in the latest reporting period, his opponents raised a combined $221,000. This once again proves my theory that unless someone gets out, Burton will likely stay in.
- Carlos May will announce tomorrow that he is running against incumbentAndre Carson in the 7th Congressional District. May has a long community service resume, but what may make this one different are his deep ties in the Latino community, which is often overlooked in Marion County races. While those ties may not be a total game changer, having a candidate who can speak the language, literally, of a key group of voters, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Of course the GOP will have to keep the heated illegal immigration rhetoric down to a bare minimum.
- The political divisions continue to grow within the Indiana Democratic African-American Caucus over whether candidates who run against the slate should be banned from slating for the next six years. At another weekend meeting the discussion got so heated State Rep. Bill Crawford stormed out of the meeting in disgust. Crawford was apparently not pleased with Democrats using the same tactics in 2008 that were used trying to keep African-American political pioneers off the ballot in the 1970s.
- And speaking of race, I’m hearing Marion County Sheriff’s candidate John Layton may be playing the race card in his primary contest against Mark Brown. I’m told Layton is accusing Brown of not only voting Republican, but only voting for Barack Obama because he is black. Brown is also an African-American.
That’s all I’ve got for today.
Powered by
I love the made up facts and figures.The only one who has said that Indiana’s welfare system was bad is the governor . we were in the top five in having a low error rate . He is the one claims fraud was a problem . Please note the medicaid frauds since he has been in office .Th fraud accusations are nothing but a “red hering. There was never a cost benefit analysis so the ony savings we hear of are made up by the same person who cannot admit failure
I am the parent of a minor child who is on the Autism waiver. I DO pay taxes and therefore I am concerned on 2 fronts about the FSSA disasters in the Medicaid system.
We were told that my child would be placed in a program called “Care Select” and given a “Care Coordinator” whose job was to oversee and coordinate health care services in order to save money; in other words, to take the control of a client’s healthcare out of the hands of the guardian and into the “more competent” hands of the State.
I attempted to locate my daughter’s care coordinator recently only to find that she has NEVER been placed in the system. How much are we paying this outside firm to operate this sham business? When I asked how long it would take to put my daughter in the system as she was having her second spine surgery soon and I needed assistance, I received the response of “I can’t work miracles”. That was the point I hung up.
Speaking of waiver services, thanks to the new “uniform rates” plan, my daughter’s services have been cut dramatically; $1.00 this year will not purchase what $1.00 did last year. As a result, my daughter has given up therapy that our regular insurance would not cover.
I don’t want “something for nothing” as a State DFC worker once accused me of during my daughter’s renewal questions for her Waiver services, but if my taxes are helping to fund a program that should help my daughter, I have high expectations of those programs and how they are run in a finacially efficient manner. So far, all I see is waste and with the uniform rates (which INCREASED payments to waiver providers)my daughter and all other waiver recipients in the state of Indiana lost.