I’ve had quite a few e-mails and calls about when the Washington Township Board meets.  The Board meets this Thursday at 6:15 p.m. at the Trustee’s Office at 1595 E. 86th Street to vote on its budget.   That budget includes a nice big pay raise.  The raise would take the part-time advisory board’s salary from $2200 to $3800 annually.

The township board is only required to meet four times a year, so in theory these guys are techinically making $950.00 a meeting.   And remember, the township doesn’t have a fire department to manage anymore.  So there’s nothing like a near 70-percent raise when you have 80-percent less work to supervise. 

Nice work if you can get it.

Once again we start the week with little things (or not so little in some cases) that are worth paying attention to…

Township Tales

• In it’s never-ending to quest to justify consolidation, the Washington Township Board voted itself a 69-percent pay raise. Their salary went from $2200 annually to $3800.   The nice thing about that is that the township’s budget went from $20 million to $1.6 million after consolidating the fire department with IFD.  So since they have less work to do, they felt a pay raise was in order. The Board meets later this week.

Both friend and foe alike are talking about Mayor Greg Ballard’s proposed reduction in the County Option Income Tax from 1.65 to 1.62 percent; an $18 million savings for the taxpayers over the next three years.

Friends say it is a misguided public relations stunt.  Foes are taking credit for something they had nothing to do with nor fully understand.

What it is, is giving people back their hard-earned money.

If friends want to complain about something, I suggest they direct their attention towards the Marion County Courts and how they took their portion of the public safety/COIT increase and instead of creating an additional criminal court to alleviate jail overcrowding, the Courts instead created an additional family court. The Courts tackled the jail overcrowding issue through better case management and moving defendants through the chute quicker.

Before foes take credit for something, they should try to understand how the process works.  The city could not have adjusted the COIT rate understate law once it was set.  However, this is about the levy.  When the tax increase originally passed, the legislature had not yet picked up the pre-1977 pensions and child welfare levies.  Now they have.  With a smaller levy, there can be a smaller rate.  In addition, as reported this morning, the state gave counties the authority to reduce their tax rates by 0.03.

Now is a $12 savings per taxpayer a lot?  Not really, eventhough I argue the number is bigger because not every person in Marion County pays income taxes.  But that small number sends a big message.  The message that the Ballard administration is going to be fiscally responsible and return to the taxpayers (the people who pay the bills) as much of their money as possible.

And if my Democratic friends in 2011 are going to run on a platform of more taxes so there can be more spending all I can wonder is what will be Ballard’s big achievements during his second term?

Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard will call for a nearly $18 million cut in the County Option Income Tax over the next three years.

Accodring to a city spokesman the city no longer has to pay for police pensions and child welfare so it no longer has to levy taxes for those costs, thus the COIT reduction.

The Mayor will hold a news conference on Monday to discuss the rest of the details.

My esteemed colleague has been blogging about the Indiana Toll Road lately and how the State is making payments to the consortium leasing the road because it is not making enough money from increased tolls.   She  says the story must be true since the Daniels folks have never outright denied the allegation, even though they have commented on this blog.

Allow me to say that my counterpart is not wrong, but she is also not right.

After using my keen reporter skills built over the last 15 years,  I made a call to the Governor’s Budget Office. I found out the State has paid about $7.7 million to the Toll Road consortium, but not to make up for lost revenue. Although the tolls increased when the consortium took over the Road, if a driver uses an electronic pass they pay the 1986 toll rate.  Under the terms of the agreement, the State of Indiana agreed to pick up the difference.  Which to date has amounted to about $7.7 million, or .002 percent of the $3.8 billion the state received for the Toll Road.

Logic dictates that a good chunk of those using electronic tolling are Hoosiers living along the toll road who use it daily.  So in truth the State is subsidizing the driving of the people who were the ones most likely to complain.  Never mind the fact the last time they saw an increase in the Toll Road, I had a Jerri Curl and was madly in love with Denise from the Cosby Show.

So is the State paying money to the Toll Road consortium? Yes.  Is it because of loss revenue?  No.  It’s because the state is subsidizing the driving habits of people who haven’t paid a Toll increase in more than 20 years.

There’s the outrage.