County Government avoids mistake
On this blog we discussed the proposed bribe incentive that some County officials were considering paying to GM employees who chose to buy a house in Allen County.
This was a terrible idea…
Luckily the County had a realistic financial impact study done and has decided not to pursue this terrible idea.
Now if we can just get the Henry Administration and Congress to start using realistic financial impact studies…
Mike Sylvester
2010 Senate race in Indiana
I do not want to see either Indiana Senator re-elected when they next run for office. Neither has impressed me and both often vote in favor of programs and policies that I oppose.
Democratic Senator Evan Bayh is the incumbent Democrat that is up for re-election in 2010. I cannot imagine very many circumstances where I could possibly vote for him. He is not an effective Senator and I am highly offended that his wife; who is completely unqualified to sit on any large corporate board, currently sits on several corporate boards just because her husband is a US Senator. That is wrong on many levels and I think Indiana voters should be outraged by this.
I have yet to decide which Republican I will support in the primary; however, it is likely that I will support whichever Republican manages to win the Republican primary.
With that being said I just do not understand the media’s interest in the likely candidacy of former Senator Coates. Former Senator Coats was a reasonably good Senator, he is a reasonably conservative Republican, and he and I actually lived in the same neighborhood for several years (Walden). He lived around the corner from my parents house on Vance and lived maybe ten houses away from my family when I was enrolled in FWCS.
Senator Coats moved away from Indiana to Virginia where he has been a lobbyist for most of the last twelve years.
Why would any Indiana Republican be excited about electing a DC lobbyist to the US Senate who has not lived in this state for the last twelve years?
Seriously, are any of the readers of this blog excited about a Coates candidacy for US Senate?
If so, why are you excited?
The only reason I can think that anyone would be excited is that they think former Senator Coates could win the race…
I was excited when I thought Mike Pence might run. Mike Pence is an awesome Republican who I wholeheartedly support.
Mike Sylvester
My Thoughts on FWCS Budget Cuts
The Fort Wayne Community School Board has requested that the administration come up with $15 million in potential cuts by the end of the month. To put that into perspective it is roughly 5% of the total 2010 budget.
First, let me point out that I believe that the district has the financial problems it does for a variety of reasons - flight to the suburbs, changes and uncertainty at the state legislature and poor management and oversight from the administration and the school board. In a district that was performing academically the administration could (as Southwest Allen County Schools did) go to the taxpayers and ask for a tax increase. However, the majority of taxpayers are unlikely to support such a measure since they do not have the confidence in the Superintendent or her administrators to solve the problems we face.
Next, I think it’s important to note that attempting to whitewash the district’s academic problems by focusing on “New Tech” highschools and other such programs only serves to exacerbate the problem and cost the district millions of dollars. The real focus should be on ending social promotion, improving parental involvement and fixing the academic issues at the elementary schools. Focusing on high schools just won’t get the district the bang for the buck they need right now. Too many kids are promoted on without learning the skills they need, and by the time they get to high school it’s simply too late.
Having said that I have come up with a list of items that I feel should be implemented to reduce the budget while minimizing the impact on academics. I recognize that some of these will be difficult and require an adept administration to pull off. I also realize that many of these will be unpopular for various groups. Unfortunately, we are in a position where these cuts are necessary. It isn’t a matter of how much will get cut; it’s a matter of what will get cut.
I believe these items can help bridge the financial gap but I recognize that more will be needed in order to turn around the academics. The administration’s latest plan of “blame the teachers” is self-servingly fool-hearted and won’t do anything to solve the problems we face. I’ll have more on that in a future post but for now here are my ideas. Feel free to let me know what you think of these items or post your own suggestions:
Read more
State Budget Director Says Proposed Tax Increase Isn’t Really a Tax Increase
Governor Daniels is looking to balance the budget by eliminating 8 tax credits. Now whether or not this is a good idea is really not the point of this post. What I want to point out is that Republicans have become so scared of “tax increases” that they won’t even admit when they propose to increase taxes.
Here’s an example from the state budget director Chris Ruhl:
INDIANAPOLIS – Gov. Mitch Daniels wants to suspend millions of dollars in tax credits given every year to individuals, non-profits and Hoosier companies as part of his proposed administrative cost-savings measure. This comes despite his urging lawmakers in his State of the State speech not to “make this recession worse by adding one cent to the tax burden of our fellow citizens.”
The tax credits that would be affected include the Neighborhood Assistance Credit, Enterprise Zone Investment Cost and Loan Interest Credits, the Community Revitalization Enhancement District Credit and several business credits for offering health benefits and a wellness program to employees.
[...]
According to the fiscal impact statement on the bill, the suspension of the various tax credits could save more than $8 million per year.Ruhl said Daniels does not consider it a tax increase. He noted that one taxpayer or another can always see his liability go up or down in any given year due to changes.
Wait a minute there professor - let’s just think about that statement a bit. You want to change the rules so that you collect $8 million more per year. That’s not a situation of some taxpayers’ liability goes up and some go down. That’s a net tax increase of $8 million. But it gets worse for Ruhl:
“It’s a balancing act,” he said, noting that something that affects one-tenth of 1 percent of the people is not a tax increase.
I’m not sure I even need to point this out but that’s probably the dumbest statement I’ve heard in quite some time. Why not just tax the wealthiest top 0.1% at 100% of their income then? After all it wouldn’t be a tax increase. Or wait, I’ve got it! We’ll only increase the taxes for everyone with the last name Ruhl or Daniels. That probably affects less than 0.1% of taxpayers.
Ruhl should just quit embarrassing himself. What the governor has proposed is (gasp!) a tax increase. If they want to argue the merits of that decision then fine go right ahead but don’t insult our intelligence by suggesting it’s something that it’s not…
Mayor Tom Henry does it again, good grief
The Administration of Tom Henry has been painfully hard to watch. The Administration has largely been dysfunctional and ineffective.
Kevin Leininger has a must read column in the Thursday News-Sentinel entitled “Is Purcell salary pay for work or a gold parachute?”
Basically Deputy Mayor Purcell resigned earlier this week on Monday. He resigned to return to Michigan and care for his elderly mother. I certainly wish Mr. Purcell well and hope that he is able to effectively care for his mother and wish both of them the best of luck.
That being said it is hard for me to imagine that the Deputy Mayor warrants being paid his full salary and benefits for an additional three months so that he can work on a part time basis for the City from Michigan.
I believe the City of Fort Wayne has a policy in place that all of its employees live in the state of Indiana and be Indiana residents. I am pretty sure that you cannot live in Ohio and be a City employee…
I wonder if the City is waiving this rule or if they just “forgot” that they had such a rule?
Mike Sylvester
Deputy Mayor is the City’s Latest Overpaid Consultant
The deputy mayor has resigned but he will still get paid for 3 more months during this transitional phase. Let me just say that I completely agree with councilman Tom Smith who called this arrangement “ridiculous”. How in the world is an operations manager going to perform his duties by telecommuting? That goes against the very nature of what operations management is all about.
Since there’s absolutely no way for him to perform his full-time job duties then he should not get full-time pay (shocking statement I know). However, if his input is needed during this transitional period then he should be paid his hourly rate and not a blanket salary. At this point he’s basically a government employee on retainer and he should be paid accordingly.
City council should remember this come next year’s budget talks and cut the mayor’s salary line accordingly in order to recoup the taxpayers’ money…
Fort Wayne Ranks 3rd in Housing Affordability
Fort Wayne ranks as the 3rd most affordable city in the 6th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey (pd). The survey ranks markets by their “median multiple” which is the median home price divided by the median gross household income.
Of course such a ranking is not necessarily a good sign. One only needs to look at the top 10 to see that (from p10):
Deputy Mayor’s Resignation Presents a Savings Opportunity
With the deputy mayor resigning today, the city can now save $115k per year by not filling the position since the administration’s payroll is too large as it is. The mayor makes a good salary and has many competent department heads to manage the day-to-day operations. He should be capable of overseeing their performance without the need for a deputy mayor…
Lincoln Financial Games the TARP System
Apologies if this has been reported elsewhere as the information is about a month old but given Lincoln’s ties to Fort Wayne I thought it would be of interest. In December, the Special Inspector General for the TARP (that’s the $750 Billion bank bailout) issued a report regarding the usage of TARP funds by various institutions.
The report highlights how Lincoln Financial bought a hole-in-the-wall bank in order to become eligible for TARP funds. Had the bank itself applied for TARP funds it would’ve only been eligible for $350k but Lincoln was able to buy this bank for ~$10 Million and then receive $950 Million in TARP funds. Keep in mind that without this purchase Lincoln would not have been eligible for any TARP funds. And to top it off, they haven’t used any of the money towards the bank’s activities but have instead used all of it to shore up their insurance business.
Here’s the relevant info from the SIGTARP report (PDF, p14):
H/T - Mish
