2004

Marion County Alliance of Neighborhood Associations

.....
click here to return to index

The opinions expressed in these articles and features are those of their author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of McANA or the opinion of its Directors or Officers.

Bart Peterson 
[Mayor, City of Indianapolis]

Last month, I unveiled Indianapolis Works, a detailed call to action to streamline local government, simplify tax structures in Indianapolis and Marion County, and bring us out of a fiscal crisis.

Most people know Unigov was created more than 30 years ago to consolidate many aspects of local government in Marion County. It was a visionary, but not fully complete plan. Where it consolidated government, it was – and it remains – remarkably successful. But, many of the areas of local government it did not touch are in crisis today.

Here’s what Indianapolis Works will do:

It will merge the Indianapolis Police Department and the Marion County Sheriff’s Department together as one new metropolitan police force;

It will merge nine separate Fire Departments in Marion County into the Indianapolis Fire Department;

It will eliminate the nine elected Township Trustee offices and elected Township Boards in Marion County, in favor of two district Trustees and Boards for poor relief administration;

It will eliminate the nine elected Township Tax Assessors and move those assessment functions and resources to the County Assessor’s office, reducing costs and promoting greater uniformity in property tax assessments; and

It will unify the budgeting process for city and county government, ending the tug-of-war among agencies for scarce budget resources and cleaning up the financial chaos among more than a dozen county offices and agencies.

Indianapolis Works will reduce the size of government, provide more accountability for the officials who spend your tax dollars, and most importantly, it will save the taxpayers of Indianapolis and Marion County $35 million every year and avoid an additional $20 million in duplicative public safety expenses.

Police consolidation will save more than $9 million a year. Sheriff Anderson has made it clear that 250 new sheriff’s deputies would be needed to control the rising crime rate in the suburbs under the existing system. Adding these deputies would cost approximately $20 million annually and raise taxes, particularly in the suburban areas. Indianapolis Works would allow for fully staffed, effective policing in the suburban parts of Marion County without that additional $20 million in expenses.

Indianapolis Works will merge the eight Township Fire Departments and the Airport Fire Department into the Indianapolis Fire Department (IFD) and establish divisions of IFD based on the current Townships. We released data which details $20.8 million in annual savings resulting from fire department consolidation. Several Township Fire Departments have successfully collaborated with IFD for many years now, and consolidation would be even better for fire service countywide. For example, IFD would work with the Firefighters Union to make sure – countywide – there are requirements for adequate staffing to promote firefighter safety and fire protection.

Without Indianapolis Works, we face massive tax increases or massive city/county service cutbacks, or both.

Under today’s government structure, besides funding public safety operations and pensions, property taxes support a myriad of neighborhood services. Without a change, the public safety funding needs will continue to require a larger portion of the tax dollars available. For neighborhoods, that will mean there are fewer resources available to deliver non-public safety services, which are also important to healthy neighborhoods.

On average, the Department of Public Works allocates approximately $5 million annually in property taxes to construct or maintain the city’s physical infrastructure. If these resources are reduced, our ability to resurface streets, maintain curbs and sidewalks, and improve our community’s bridges will be negatively impacted.

Our Department of Parks and Recreation already has much to do with less than we all would like. Over $25 million annually in property taxes support the operations, capital improvement, and maintenance of some of our neighborhoods’ most precious resources like Eagle Creek Park, Douglass Park, the Monon Trail, Riverside Park, and Garfield Park. Without Indianapolis Works, we would be forced to ask ourselves where to cut hours of operation in our parks and defer maintenance.

In the Department of Metropolitan Development, which is funded with approximately $4 million in property taxes annually, we would be forced to consider options like laying off Township Administrators, whose primary responsibility is to assist residents and neighborhood organizations in finding their way around city hall; cutting back on land use planning resources that strive to build a community vision for how land is developed in our city; and reducing already tight resources to maintain and manage popular city assets such as the downtown canal walk.

I have had the privilege of meeting thousands of people who live in neighborhoods across our city in the last five years, and I’ve learned something from everyone. I’ve learned they all care about their neighborhoods, and they all want our city to continue moving forward and to prepare for the future. Our city has come too far to choose an option that would only set us back on our common goal. Indianapolis Works will create more efficient government, maintain and even enhance the quality of life in our neighborhoods and prepare our city for a better future.