Your ex-husband told you he was a great money manager, but when he left, you discovered that the house had been refinanced and all your credit cards were maxed out. Your line of credit at the bank is near its limit, and interest takes almost a third of your paycheck. You’ve been deferring maintenance on the house, and the small problems have become costly repairs. You are paying for multiple home security systems, although your neighbor only pays for one; you and your sisters support your retired mother, but you pay 70%, a sister who is richer pays 30%, and another sister who could help pays nothing.
Your ex-husband told you he was a great money manager, but when he left, you discovered that the house had been refinanced and all your credit cards were maxed out. Your line of credit at the bank is near its limit, and interest takes almost a third of your paycheck. You’ve been deferring maintenance on the house, and the small problems have become costly repairs. You are paying for multiple home security systems, although your neighbor only pays for one; you and your sisters support your retired mother, but you pay 70%, a sister who is richer pays 30%, and another sister who could help pays nothing.
That pretty much sums up the fiscal picture in Indianapolis.
- Between 1992 and 1998, debt service as a percentage of the City budget grew by $7,000,000 annually. By 1998, it absorbed 31% of available revenues. Debt rose from $328,678,745 in December, 1991 to $521,722,195 in 1998.
- The City’s sewers, which were in terrible shape in 1992, were in even worse condition by 1998.
- Money originally earmarked for Police and Fire pensions was used for other things, leaving those liabilities unfunded.
- The City continues to support 22 separate policing agencies, and to charge center-city residents for both IPD and the Sheriff’s Department, while the suburbs pay only for the Sheriff.
- Expenditures for child welfare services have actually been cut, requiring those agencies to borrow to cover services they are legally mandated to provide, and diverting tax dollars from services to interest.
- Years of neglect and deferred maintenance of IPS schools has reached crisis point. IPS needs over $800,000,000 for facility replacements and repairs.
These needs (and many others) are real, and they absolutely must be addressed. But we cannot keep bonding for everything, especially when some property taxpayers are shouldering an unfair percentage of the cost. We will kill the geese that lay the golden tax eggs—property owners within the old city limits.
It is past time for government and civic leaders to come together to make the hard choices that Indianapolis has refused to face over the past decade. While no one wants to tax small churches and nonprofits, large nonprofit enterprises burden public infrastructure and use public services, and should pay their fair share. We don’t need 22 police departments—and Center Township shouldn’t have to pay the whole freight for IPD. Unequal and confusing taxing districts need to be re-examined and reformed.
We can’t have it all. Sports palaces are nice, but decent schools, safe children and sanitary sewers are necessities. Most people are willing to pay taxes if—and this is a crucial if—they are convinced that they are getting value for their tax dollars. I spend more for shoes today than I did ten years ago, and I am willing to spend more for police. I think most of us are. What we are not willing to do is continue with a piecemeal, ad-hoc, pretend-not-to-see-the-elephant-in-the-living-room approach to our fiscal crisis.
This is a time for leadership. I hope we get it.