Friday, September 28, 2012

Police Layoffs Threatened If Council Doesn't Approve Elimination Of Homestead Credit

The Ballard administration has apparently warned some city-county councilors to expect layoffs of police if the council does not agree to the elimination of the homestead credit for residential property taxpayers. Eliminating the homestead credit would help the city close a $50 to $60 million budget deficit for 2013 according to the administration by about $8 million; however, if it is retained, the credit will cost about $13 million in city-county revenues for 2013. As I previously reported, the city's gain from eliminating the homestead credit would come at the expense of other taxing districts, particularly schools. County option income tax revenues are the source from which the cost of providing the credit is paid rather than foregone property tax revenues. If the credit is eliminated, a number of homeowners who haven't bumped up against the property tax cap of 2% will reach it, causing a hit to taxing units who rely on property tax revenues. Police staffing levels are already down about 300 from where they were several years ago after the city enacted a 65% increase in the county option income tax, which was dubbed at the time as a "public safety tax increase" because of the nearly 100 police additional police officers the public was told the city would be able to hire once the tax became law.

5 comments:

CircleCityScribe said...

Laugh at that one! Ballard lay-off police...

There was a meeting of a bunch of us who are angry about the crime taking place, and the fact that Ballard has dropped police staffing to the lowest level in modern history. We clearly, in a standing room only meeting, rejected Ballard's "county sheriff" or "zone policing" concept whereby there is no longer police in the neighborhood, but someone who comes when you call....after about 15 or mor minutes of travel time in an EMERGENCY! (Leave alone the non-emergency matters, which can take hours for a response.)

Neighborhoods are now so angry at Ballard that we show him that WE REJECT HIS FALIED PUBLIC SAFETY PLAN by hiring our own off-duty police to perform what the on-duty police can no longer do because of the mismanagement.

Where is the audit of the Public Safety Budget???

Downtown Indy said...

I fail to see how this funding gap can't easily be closed due to the economic benefit of CityWay, Cultural Trail, Georgia Street and the Super Bowl.

Had Enough Indy? said...

I'd say - go ahead. Let's see what the public has to say the next day.

Jeff Cox said...

Ballard is making a serious bid for Worst Mayor Evah.

american patriot said...

Maybe the first layoffs should be his security detail, I don't recall Bart having more than one.
Time for a ballardlies.com site. I wonder if the yellow chicken suit guy is still around.