Fort Wayne pension costs
Due to some discussion on this blog with a commentor I talked to Fort Wayne City Controller Pat Roller about the outstanding liability for the old police and fire pension plans.
Last year the city had an outstanding liability on these pensions of almost one quarter of a billion dollars. The Indiana Legislature changed the rules and took over this outstanding liability this year. This was one of the many changes that occurred with the changes in property taxes.
Per Pat Roller this is not going to benefit the City financially because at the same time the State lowered the amount that could be appropriated by the City to make pension payments by about 8 million dollars per year. The State basically lowered the amount that the City could pay via property taxes by this 8 million dollar figure.
Per Pat Roller this has a net effect of close to zero. She feels that the City most likely will have a small pension liability for these older pension plans (Maybe one million dollars) due to the death benefit and the administration costs.
So while the State of Indiana did take esponsibility for paying the bulk of these old pension plans; at the same time they lowered the amount the City could levy via property taxes by eight million per year.
The net result is close to zero.
Mike Sylvester
How Mike Sylvester plans on voting next week
I have decided how I am going to vote next week.
President: Bobb Barr/Wayne Root, Libertarian. This race was simple, I cannot vote for McCain and I definitely cannot vote for Obama. With the addition of Palin I almost decided to vote for McCain.
Governor: MItch Daniels/Becky Skillman, Republican. This race was tough for me because I almost voted Libertarian; however, I voted for Mitch Daniels because he has guts and is willing to change things.
Attorney General: Greg Zoeller, Republican. This one was easy.
Superintendent of Public Instruction: Tony Bennett, Republican. This one was easy.
3rd Congressional District: William Larsen. This one was easy as well. I cannot vote for Souder for reasons often posted on this blog. I cannot vote for Montagano because he has no experience, is afraid to take stands on the issue, and moved here just to run for Congress. I can vote for William Larsen because he is a small government type and a social conservative. William Larsen would be a Republican today if the Republican Party still stood for smaller Government.
County Treasurer: Sue Orth, Republican. I am impressed with Maria Parra’s willingness to stand up the the Wayne Township Board; however, I feel Sue Orth is more qualified.
County Council. Susan Hoot, Democrat. Paul Moss, Republican. This was the toughest race for me; in fact, I still have not decided if I will vote for a 3rd person or not. County Council has five candidates all of which have some strengths. Susan Hoot is a no-brainer for me. I have been impressed with Paul Moss in the past; however his recent desire to put public money into our zoo turned me off as has his stance on the Canyon Cliffs Development. That being said; I still think he stands for smaller Government in general.
There are a lot of other uncontested races and I do not see a reason to list them.
I became a Republican this year and certainly am voting for a majority of Republicans in contested races. In contested raced I am voting for:
- Two Libertarians
- One Democrat
- Five Republicans
Mike Sylvester
Polling Data On Fort Wayne Casino
The
Wane/News-Sentinel poll asked residents of the 3rd congressional district about Fort Wayne gambling:
Would you favor or oppose a gaming boat in Fort Wayne as a part of the often discussed North River Project?
| Favor | Oppose | Not Sure | |
|---|---|---|---|
| All | 32% | 36% | 32% |
| Men | 35% | 34% | 31% |
| Women | 29% | 38% | 33% |
| Democrats | 32% | 35% | 33% |
| Republicans | 34% | 34% | 32% |
| Indpendents | 30% | 39% | 31% |
My political predictions from Nov 2006
After the Democrats took control of Congress in November of 2006 I made 22 predictions. Many people chimed in and posted their predictions as well including our own Jeff Pruitt. These prediction involved Democratic campaign promises, items conservative talk radio “claimed” that the Democrats would embrace if they took the majority, and other items I was interested in.
You can read my predictions here. You can read Jeff Pruitt’s response to my predictions here.
Without a doubt; the Democrats completely failed to follow that majority of their campaign promises; however, the media and voters are not holding them accountable for this!
Several of these promises have been passed in the House; however, the Senate has failed to pass them. I think it is fair to say that House Democrats WOULD (And did pass i many cases) have passed many of these items if not for the senate. The Republicans have done some filibustering in the senate; however, the senate Democrats have COMPLETELY failed to accomplish anything.
Below are my predictions and how accurate Jeff Pruitt and I were:
Mayor and Council Should Work To Reinstate PIO Position
I’ve said for some time that the only way to get to the desired 3% goal was to cut city staff. At tonight’s meeting the city council went through and nixed an extraordinary number of line items to cut $2.4 million from the budget, but they only cut one position from the payroll.
That one position was the mayor’s public information officer. I just cannot believe that of all the city positions the council decided this was the one, and only one, that needed to go. The city’s PIO is an interface to the public and helps answer citizen questions among other things. I have personally seen a dramatic increase in the response and accessibility of this administration when compared to the previous one.
Since the budget ordinance is tabled until November 18 the council has a chance to reconsider this cut. Having said that, this process should be a two-way street. The mayor needs to come up with $54k in cuts to offer as a replacement for this position cut. The vote was close and only passed 5-4 so I think if the mayor comes forward with an alternative cut then he could likely flip one of those votes.
A nice gesture would be for the mayor to forgo the salary increase that he’s due to collect thanks to the previous council. The mayor could cut his own salary from $120k back to the level it was a couple of years ago - $104k. As I warned in a previous post, the mayor should’ve engaged the council in serious budget discussions before it was too late. Now he’s lost a member of his own staff and in the end I believe he’s to blame for that.
But maybe it’s not too late after all. The council and the mayor should find a way to reinstate the PIO position. The idea that the PIO is the most inefficient and pointless position in all of city government and thus is the only one that should be downsized strikes me as ridiculous…
City Budget Cuts Tabled Until Nov 18 - $2.4 Million Cut So Far
The city attorney convinced council that they could not legally cut a flat 3% from the budget. As a response the council voted on a motion to cut 3% from every line item. That motion failed by a 5-4 vote with councilmembers Harper, Smith, Brown and Didier voting for it.
From there the council went line by line and voted on each and every proposed cut. The most significant cuts that were passed were a zero salary increase for all employees and the elimination of a public information officer from the mayor’s staff which was the only city position eliminated.
There was also serious discussion about eliminating the entire 911 communications department and forcing the city and county executives to finally consolidate those two departments. The motion failed with councilmen Harper, Hines and Pape voting to eliminate the department. While the vote might have failed, several councilmembers including Goldner, Shoaff and Smith made it quite clear that if this consolidation does not happen by the next budget cycle then they will vote to eliminate it from the city department.
After going through all the proposed cuts councilwoman Liz Brown commented that she was unaware that the 3% flat cut would be illegal until earlier today. Because of that she said that she did not have the opportunity to go through all the department budgets to find the $4.5 million cuts she wanted to find.
She then made a motion to table the budget ordinance until Nov 18. The delay is due to the fact that there will have to be another public notice and public hearing requiring a 10 day lead time. The motion passed 5-4 with Brown, Shoaff, Harper, Didier and Pape voting for it. So the council will reconvene their budget talks on Nov 18 to finalize their cuts.
The itemized cuts the council agreed to thus far are listed below:
Administration Sandbags City Council
Once again the administration will sandbag city council by providing them last minute information the day of the meeting. I’m told the city will be presenting a response from the various department heads that would explain how the individual council cuts would affect their departments.
In general this is a good information. But by handing out the information at the last minute they hope to sandbag the councilmembers so they don’t have time to research the responses and come up with intelligent questions and rebuttals.
As an outsider it seems to me that this is becoming a standard tactic used by the administration…
Mayor Prepares To Fight Flat Budget Cuts
Word is the city attorney is coming to city council to inform them that they do not have the statutory authority to cut the budget bottom line by 3% as some councilmembers (and myself) wanted to do. In other words the city attorney is insisting that the council cut the individual line items themselves.
I’m not going to try and play lawyer here and determine who’s right but let me just say that this is going to kick things up a notch. The council could clearly cut 3% from every line item if they chose to and the mayor may be forcing that upon them.
At this point I feel like council should accept the mayor’s legal position and then proceed to cut 5% from the budget item by item. I would also take JQ Taxpayer’s half-serious approach of gutting the entire 9th floor in the process. It would surely be a symbolic vote as undoubtedly the mayor would use his veto power to send it back to council. (Update: Councilman Tom Smith said during the budget meeting that the mayor cannot veto the budget ordinance.)
That’s really the problem here - we’re at gridlock. The mayor is unwilling to cut a single nickel from the budget but council probably doesn’t have the 6 votes to override a veto. Something’s gotta give…
Local Paper Defends Quote
In yesterday’s post I said that one local paper’s race-baiting editorial took Evert Mol’s quote out of context. That same local paper did not think that was a fair characterization and sent me the e-mail they lifted the quote from. I’m going to post the timeline leading up to the editorial and readers can judge for themselves whether or not it was taken out of context.
Corona Updates Illegal Campaign Finance Report
A local paper covered my complaint regarding FWCS board member Steve Corona’s illegal campaign finance report:
After learning of the complaint, Corona said he called his campaign treasurer, Bruce Boxberger, a local attorney, about the omission.
Boxberger filed Corona’s original campaign finance report with the election board and said the omission of itemized expenditures was an oversight.
The correct form was faxed to the election board Friday.
[...]
“I just wanted him to file the page before the election. If he’s filed it, I’m OK with that,” Pruitt said. “I think it’s important to know where everybody’s money comes from and who it goes to.”
I’m glad he corrected the error in an expedited manner. If you are interested about where his money came from then you should know that the vast majority of it came from people who do business with FWCS. Local architect Mike Gouloff gave him $5k of the $8k he raised.
