The Ballard administration has been feeding this lie for the past year about how it's possible to get a brand new criminal justice center costing at least a half billion dollars to construct for no more than the city-county government currently spends on its current facilities. They actually claim it will cost $3 million a year less. "Really, where we've succeeded and where everyone else has failed in looking at this is we've found a way to make the finances work," says David Rosenberg, one of the cake boys working for Mayor Ballard who doesn't know his ass from first base.
The reality is that deep budget cuts are required to make that pipe dream possible because the supposed savings claimed by the Ballard administration are purely illusory. A "confidential" document claims $50 million in savings annually according to an Indianapolis Star report. Where do are those savings attributed? The biggest savings is eliminating annual payments made to Corrections Corporation of America to operate Jail II, which are projected to be $22.8 million by the time the new jail is ready for use, which is $4 million more than the CCA contract currently costs.
The other savings are highly speculative. The administration believes $10 million will be saved through staff reductions. Remember the large savings promised from law enforcement consolidation back in 2005? Yeah, none of those savings ever materialized. Ditto the merger of township fire departments into IFD, which only increased the cost of providing fire protection. Nearly $10 million is claimed in savings from rent paid on the two jail buildings, both of which are owned by the Marion Co. Building Authority. There will also supposedly be over $4 million in health care cost savings from treating inmates in-house rather than sending them over to Eskanazi Hospital. There's also projected new revenues of nearly $4 million from parking fees and another $2 million for a possible contract to handle federal inmates.
Time is running out, and the administration wants the City-County Council not to waste any time kicking the tires before driving off with this one. There's only a little more than nine months left for this administration to steal everything that's not nailed down. Why not just one more big round of payoffs, kickbacks and bribes before the most corrupt mayor in the city's history calls it a day?
The other savings are highly speculative. The administration believes $10 million will be saved through staff reductions. Remember the large savings promised from law enforcement consolidation back in 2005? Yeah, none of those savings ever materialized. Ditto the merger of township fire departments into IFD, which only increased the cost of providing fire protection. Nearly $10 million is claimed in savings from rent paid on the two jail buildings, both of which are owned by the Marion Co. Building Authority. There will also supposedly be over $4 million in health care cost savings from treating inmates in-house rather than sending them over to Eskanazi Hospital. There's also projected new revenues of nearly $4 million from parking fees and another $2 million for a possible contract to handle federal inmates.
ReplyDeleteTime is running out, and the administration wants the City-County Council not to waste any time kicking the tires before driving off with this one. There's only a little more than nine months left for this administration to steal everything that's not nailed down. Why not just one more big round of payoffs, kickbacks and bribes before the most corrupt mayor in the city's history calls it a day?
That we have Democrat and Republican City Councilors who continue to support the lies upon which the intentional deception known as the criminal justice center project is based indicates how far the chasm is from sanity and representative government to crony "politicalism" and politician greed. We have the best Democrat and Republican politicians money can buy... ask Councilors paid off via campaign "contributions" by the digital sign corruption corporatists (hello, Zach Adamson and Jeff Miller and Mary Moriarty Adams), or ask bought and paid for Brian Bosma. Brian Bosma is just one of the men Ersal Ozdemir adds to a crew of male escorts the construction company owner financially beds.
ReplyDeleteWhere is Joe Hogsett on this criminal justice center issue? Where is Joe Hogsett on Ballard's giveaway of what could be called a work or art... the old City Hall? Would the Louvre or MOMA give away a Rembrandt or a Manet in the apparent cavalier way Ballard gives away our artistic heritage like the old City Hall for a bag of gold coins? Where is Joe Hogsett on the many fee increases Ballard and his idiot City Council championed at any opportunity possible?
Where is Joe Hogsett on any issue facing a City who has unborn taxpayers already pledged by career politicians to fill the coffers of corporate pockets?
And the cost to expand the jail to the future Cummins location that was formerly Market Square Arena?
ReplyDeleteThe TAX AND SPEND philosophy is a failure. Ballard is running out of OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY to spend!
Do you have to ask where Hogsett stands on this issue? His law firm is being paid $750,000 with your taxpayer dollar to lobby for this corrupt deal while he campaigns full-time for mayor and earns a big six-figure salary.
ReplyDeleteMy dad told me that our cousin, John Barton, did not get reelected because he was too honest. When I was elected John, the only thing that Mayor Barton asked me to do, was BE HONEST.
ReplyDelete