Indy Tax Dollars

The dots again

A few days ago we wrote about the inability - or unwillingness - of community leadership to "connect the dots" of public policy which have lead to municipal fiscal problems. Most of our readers surely recognize that much of what we write refers to what has appeared in the local print media.

Our last effort in clipping and saving such items brought us these three headlines - the first two from the morning daily and the last from the IBJ.

May 15 - "City feels like a winner despite Super Bowl deficit."

May 23 - "Parks not a priority."

May 28 - "Playoff run pushes Pacers closer to profitability."

Based on these statements, it becomes increasingly, and depressingly, clear that the proper term is "unwillingness" of city leadership to face legitimate costs of running a city.

Actual expenditures are based on media hype about the economic and "feel good" value of professional sports, and multi-million dollar "investments" soak up the tax dollars which should have been dedicated to those parks, or public safety, or public transportation.

We are a microcosm of Washington, D.C., where more money is always needed and where a reduction of a budget and/or transfer of funds to a more needed area is a seldom, if ever, recognized solution to any problem.

We lose a million on a game in a billion dollar football field, we have to subsidize a basketball team with annual multi-million dollar payments, and all the while we’re beating the drums for new/increased taxes to make it easier for suburbanites to travel downtown. Simultaneously, of course, giving tax breaks to developers to try to get more people to actually live downtown.

The paper has never used a more honest headline than that about priority for our parks. Unfortunately, it has never seen fit to apply the same honesty to the downtown boondoggles that drain city coffers for pie-in-the-sky projects like Union Station and Georgia Street which, while in themselves are relatively minor items compared to professional sports and so-called economic development projects, will continue the drip, drip fiscal erosion, and even worse, the moral erosion involved in city failure to put its citizens’ needs first.

We seem to be living at the bottom of a rabbit hole, but Alice is nowhere in sight.

A puzzlement

We keep wondering why no one in the business or political leadership of this city seems ever to "connect the dots."

This morning’s paper gives us a front page story about the shortage of parks in Indianapolis.  Presumably lack of priority interest and/or financial support is the cause thereof.

We heard the other day that city officials are trying to obtain $20 million from Uncle Sam to upgrade Monument Circle.  (Some of that "free" money.)  We just spent $10-$12 million from the feds "upgrading" Georgia Street.  (More of that "free" money.)  And we understand Downtown Indianapolis, Inc. (IDI), surprisingly enough, is having trouble getting rid of $10,000 gifts to businesses in that area.

We’ve handed 30 million municipal bucks to the professional basketball team, and we just blew another million on "the football game."

Never do we see in public print any question about how spending priorities are determined in this city.  We are assured that international publicity obtained from the game is worth fantastic estimates of economic gain in our future.

Pardon our cynicism, but we’ve been told for decades how sports, TIF districts and downtown "economic development" projects are going to fill official coffers to overflowing.

But we still have, among other things, public safety funding shortfalls, and we’re told of the dire need for approval of new/increased tax revenues to make it easier for our northern suburbanites to get downtown.  The Palladium-to-Stadium project!  And even some improvement in IndyGo - maybe - eventually - sometime - somehow.  Priority?

Is it possible the folks downtown might round up enough money to put signs in the parks?  The signs could say, "Sorry this isn’t much of a park but take heart.  Some guy in Timbuktu saw a picture of our billion dollar football field on the village TV!"  Or, "We just spent $30 million to keep downtown basketball, but there's a backboard you can use on a garage down the alley."

Surely even our most unsophisticated citizens would greet that kind of news with gratitude.

It ain't for lack of tryin'...

...at least by our morning daily paper.  That’s our answer to the question on the front page of a recent issue - "Why don’t we give the Pacers more love?"

The reporter cites all the good news about this year’s record - including this little gem.  "They’re not world famous, but they’ve stayed out of trouble."  We suspect that most parents love for their children to stay out of trouble.  It might require something a tad more affirmative for the kid to get a gigantic monetary gift every year simply by a teary-eyed claim that last year’s allowance wasn’t enough.

Speaking of front pages, we’ve had trouble the last few days trying to guess whether we were looking at the first section or the sports section.  And we do wonder about the editorial leadership of a newspaper which gives the sports editor more front page space than the rest of the staff combined!

The paper prides itself on offering "local" news of importance - especially sports, obviously.  (Sometimes it seems only sports.)  There are other things going on.  For instance, a special commission has been established by the City-County Council to study the establishment and application of Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts, including abuses thereof.

The commission has now met four times with no report of any kind in the paper.  Not important?  Or is there an assumption that the commission is a "front" and that the status quo, dating back a few decades and which the paper has supported, will be the ultimate situation anyway?

But to get back to the stated question,  We do have one suggestion for an answer.  We’ve heard unhappy comments about the plethora of panhandlers on the downtown streets.  Perhaps folks are just getting tired of the downtown, corporate panhandler who regularly collects millions of taxpayer dollars each year.

At least with the 50 cents or a dollar level beggar, we have an option as to the distribution of our hard earned cash.  The Pacers go to municipal government, claim to be losing money, and lo and behold, a city with severe budgetary problems - like public safety and public transportation - comes up with multi-million dollar bonuses.

We suppose the difference is that the 50 cents and dollar guys really do have to beg.  They don’t have the full support of the media, to say nothing of the power of extortion as practiced by professional sports.

Apples and oranges?

The new IBJ hit our mailbox with an op-ed column entitled "Fund transit as an essential service."  The author attempts to compare fire protection and "transit" as essential "needs" of our citizens.

A fire department is like an insurance policy, to be available in case of disaster.  Having a "base" of contributors makes such an operation possible.  If a guy thinks it would be "nice" to go to the Super Bowl next year, he should start saving now rather than demanding his neighbors pay for it.  It is highly unlikely that such attendance is a "necessity."

In earlier writings, we have differed with various authors as to the accurate use of words.  We believe this another such case, at least partly because of the non-use of some words.  Those are the words defining whether we are talking about "necessity" or "nicety."

We don’t know many people who object to a drastic overhaul of IndyGo as the provider of services for those who have no other way to get to work, school, shopping, etc..  Speaking of transit, the author says, "You can’t deny that it can be a true lifesaver to those folks who need it and can rely on it."  (Our emphasis.)  Amen, brother.

Current proposals have given little indication the "needs" of these people have any particular priority in the over-all picture.  Instead, we hear glorious estimates of the advantages of express busses and speedy rail lines to and from suburban areas.  All of which are in the category of "nice" rather than "needed."

(We must reiterate two questions.  One is about the logic backing these estimates of usage, when we will be spending hundreds of millions of dollars to construct parallel transportation systems.  The other is that of spending public funds to encourage peope to live downtown while concurrently spending other public funds making it easier and more conveient to live outside the city)

It certainly is possible, if not indeed probable, that many who "need" public transit have lived in their neighborhood for many years - maybe for decades.  They are a stable part of the community.  Those in the suburbs who think it would be "nice and/or convenient" to be able to get downtown more easily and quickly should have thought of that when they opted for "green grass and clear air."

Mass transit is frequently presented as a means of making the city attractive.  Rides which are convenient, as opposed to necessary, and cheap, because they are publicly subsidized, become an "entitlement" which people begin to expect. Are we approaching "mass transit," as proposed here, as a form of up-scale welfare?  The more immediate and direct beneficiaries are most likely to be people who, having voluntarily deserted the city to begin with, now "need" help to get back to the city quickly and conveniently whenever it suits their purposes.

Let’s make vital financial decisions on the basis of "need" versus "nice."  And let’s make certain to provide first for the "needs" of those who have remained a very basic and loyal segment of the city.

A contradiction?

The current issue of the IBJ carries a story headed "Dreaming big."  Above that heading, in a sort of "banner array," appears the wording, in part, "Imagine the equivalent of...8 more Virginia Avenue parking garages...."

(Actually, the full thrust of the story is about suggestions for the "economic redevelopment" of an area most of which is bounded by Delaware Street, South Street, the White River and Interstate 70.  We’ll reference transportation first.)

We use the word "contradiction" because the basic premise of the whole complex of developments seems to pretty much ignore - if not contradict - speculation and proposals for the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars for "needed" mass transit facilities.

One of the statistics being tossed out is for "...18,600 more structured parking spaces."  Our only comment here would be to repeat what we wrote for this blog on March 18 concerning two new parking garages currently under consideration.  We questioned the logic of a city, said to be in dire need of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for mass transit, building and giving away parking garages.

Also in the picture are two possible locations for "transit centers."  One is across Capitol Avenue from the stadium.  The other is between South Street and current rail lines on the north side of the stadium.  The map included in the over-all story shows the rail line - presumably the one projected in the mass transit plan proposals - crossing Washington Street about two blocks east of East Street and proceeding diagonally toward the "transit center" locations.

We have questioned in previous writings the potential use of the proposed rail line from Hamilton county to downtown Indianapolis.  It would seem to require private transportation to the starting point, riding the train itself, and then some form of transportation from the "transit center" to almost any job north of Washington Street.  Will this really appeal to many people after we have spent other hundreds of millions paving (4?-6?-8?) lane highways and added thousands of additional parking spaces downtown for the same possible users?  (Unless, of course, we really are catering to the Palladium-to-Stadium crowd.)

As mentioned above, the primary basis of "Dreaming big" is about continuation, and expansion, of the policies of the past which have been less than successful in creating projected municipal revenues.

In addition to the thousands of new parking spaces, the big dream looks for "...9,300 new homes or apartments, 790,000 square feet of retail space, 1.8 million new square feet of office buildings..."   We find it a little scary that one of the suggested projects is "Inspired by CityWay" where the city is putting up something just under $100 million for a "dream" that private institutions apparently thought might actually be a nightmare!

These are the same types of projects upon which hundreds of millions of dollars - public and private - have been expended over recent decades, always with the promise that "the city" will be the big beneficiary.  Instead, the "return" on these "investments" has left municipal Indianapolis with year after year of budgetary problems, resulting at least partly from massive tax giveaways and a smoke-and-mirrors network of fiscal transactions between various governmental agencies.

The City-County Council recently established a commission to examine the operations of the many TIF districts in the city.  Assuming current corporate welfare policies will continue, we would recommend, with some reservation, that the entire big dream be put on hold until that commission has completed its studies.

We make the reservation because the commission does not have direct representation of the taxpayer and many of the designated members are already directly involved in the current monetary muddle.  For that reason we’re not optimistic about forthcoming changes which would eliminate the current slush fund mentality.

"Dreaming big" is apparently looking ahead 20 years for the city.  Fine.  But let’s make certain these grand ideas do not leave the city with even worse financial problems than we have as a result of the last 20 years’ "dreams!".