Ballard: There's No Public Safety Funding Crisis

Mayor Greg Ballard is firing back at comments made by Marion Co. Prosecutor Terry Curry asserting that the City is facing a public safety funding crisis. Ballard tells Fox59 News that crime is down in Indianapolis. With the exception of the current year, he says the murder rate had been below 100 for the last three consecutive years, and that crime is down 10%, while violent crimes are down 5%. City-County Councilor Mary Moriarty Adams (D) insists that higher taxes are needed. For the record, the Adams household collects four government paychecks. Adams collects her salary as a City-County Councilor, as well as a check for her full-time job working for the county assessor's office. Her husband collects both a retirement check as a sheriff's deputy and a salary as a sheriff's department official. Suffice it to say that she could give a damn less how much higher taxes affect your wallet. She should be barred from serving on the Public Safety Committee because of her obvious conflict of interest due to her husband's job.

I would highly encourage you to check out some numbers fellow blogger Pat Andrews has put together showing that the City under Ballard has about $100 million more with which to work than former Mayor Bart Peterson. The Peterson administration handed Ballard the bonus of added income tax receipts from the 65% increase in the local income tax. At the same time, property tax reform adopted at the state level removed nearly $100 million in property tax expenditures earmarked annually for child welfare services, along with a half billion dollars in unfunded pension obligations to pay the pensions of retired police officers like Councilor Adams' husband that cost the City tens of millions annually to pay down. She also takes a look at all those additional dollars flowing to the CIB which appear to show that they have had little impact in drawing additional tourism dollars to Indianapolis. Without higher taxes and expanded state subsidies from the PSDA, city revenues have barely fared better than they would have had they grown at the rate of inflation.

See video after the jump.
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