Indy Tax Dollars

Hold it, Senator...

...that is Sen. David Long, President Pro Tem of our State Senate.  The person holding this title will swing a big stick in directing legislative procedures at the coming special legislative session.

Are you aware, Senator, of a quote in this morning's paper here in Indianapolis as follows: "Long says the Senate could consider a CIB fix if it's in the budget bill and does not rely on gambling."?  (Our emphasis.)

Senator, you surely know the insertion of a "CIB fix" into a necessary state budget bill is a parliamentary ploy designed only to force affirmative votes from legislators who might very well wish to vote otherwise.

Some questions come to mind, Senator, which should be answered before diverting more state or local tax dollars to the Capital Improvement Board (CIB) - an agency which has shown fiscal irresponsibility for years.

Are you aware, Senator, that the CIB, with no explanation, diverted tax revenues specifically designated to pay for the construction of the RCA Dome for more than two decades?

Are you aware, Senator, that the CIB, having signed an agreement with the State of Indiana some four years ago accepting responsibility for the operation of the new stadium, initiated no follow-up activity toward the provision of those necessary funds?

Are you aware, Senator, that the CIB entered into said agreement, including the assumption of more than a billion dollars of new debt, with no public disclosure that it was already in the midst of a ten year period of financial deficits? 

Don't you think, Senator, that every legislator should be asked to discuss and vote on the merits of the questionable history and policies of the CIB only after the members of that board are required to explain and defend that history and those policies publicly and under oath?

Enough, already!

Isn't it time to quit playing word games in the effort to shield the so-called leaders of this community from their liability for their on-going, irresponsible fiscal policies?

The Capital Improvement Board (CIB) is in dire financial condition due to its own inept conduct.  And what is the reaction from the downtown movers and shakers?

We're told this is no time for finger pointing.  This is not the time for the blame game.  This is not the time to look backward but to look forward.

We have to wonder whether, if the prosecutor's office was investigating a mugging, these same people would proclaim, "We shouldn't be pointing a finger or laying blame. What we need to do is levy a tax and give the mugger more money so he might not commit these crimes in the future."

The fact is that this agency, with little public notice or opportunity for taxpayer reaction, has expended hundreds of millions of public dollars through questionable financial practices.

Whether it is called "finger pointing" or "the blame game" or whatever other cover the players want to use, it is, in fact, well past time for this agency to be thoroughly investigated, independently audited and subjected to, if necessary, testimony under oath as to the disposition of public funds and the creation of financial agreements so wildly unfavorable to the taxpayers providing those funds.

We don't have a law degree, and we'll gladly defer to some legal expert.  But we do wonder about the application of the concept of misfeasance or even malfeasance on the part of any local official who would enact legislation giving these same people more money with which to continue decades-old policies that have lead us down this garden path.

How about this?

There continue to be proposals floating about for bailing out the CIB.  The mayor apparently wants to buy cooperation from our neighbors by a regional liquor tax which would actually be only a local tax as far as the CIB is concerned.  Well, he suckered them in on the food and beverage tax.  Maybe he can do it again. 

But we have a new idea.  At least we don't remember seeing it anywhere.  Let's have the Colts bail out the CIB on a temporary basis.  Here's how it would work.

The CIB officially informs the Colts that there are insufficient funds to operate the stadium for at least one year.  The team is given the option of picking up all operational costs for a full year, or planning to play the 2009 season at either Purdue or IU.  (Surely either West Lafayette or Bloomington would be willing to pick up stadium rental costs in light of the tremendous financial boon these games are to the host city.)

The team could certainly afford to handle the costs for one year - while proving their "good citizenship."  And this would give anyone who is really interested in solving the problems a full year to investigate the situation and carry out an audit of the CIB.

Of course, this suggestion does presume that there are "leaders" downtown who actually do want to solve the problems rather than continue to spend more money on new carpet under which more and more dirt can be swept.

Say what???

It really is incredible.

The Capital Improvement Board (CIB), we are recently told, has operated in the red for the past ten years.

In the midst of that period the Board decided to put the taxpayers into debt for a three quarters of a billion dollar football stadium and requested and got multiple tax increases to pay for it, all without preparing for additional operational and maintenance costs - or consulting said taxpayers about the project to begin with.

We then witnessed the demolition of a building perfectly adequate, with some modification, for everything except income for the football team, and it was finally revealed that revenues from the food and beverage tax levied more than twenty years ago to pay for that building had been used elsewhere - although we were never told exactly where.

Last year significant salary increases were given to employees of the Board, currently being rationalized by members saying they had no idea there were fiscal problems in the offing.

And now, with no questions asked about how we got here, nor any financial audit, the so-called leadership of this city - both political and business - wants to increase taxes again to put more dollars into the hands of this band of incompetents!

Surely Alice never ran into anything this weird in Wonderland!!    

A disappointing position

We would suppose a letter to the editor of the newspaper, signed by an individual as president of a statewide business organization, offers the official position of that organization.  We were sorry then, to see a letter in this morning's paper (5/17/09), signed by the president of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, supporting the bailout of the Capital Improvement Board (CIB).

The gentleman concludes the letter with these words.  "That's why it is so important that the legislature gets the ball rolling by giving the City-County Council the authority to pursue the necessary solutions.  All of Indiana will be the beneficiary."  (In this case, "necessary solutions" is the equivalent of "local tax increases.")

The first question coming to mind is, if "all of Indiana" is the beneficiary - a statement we would dispute - why must it fall to a local governmental body to "pursue the necessary solutions?"  Wouldn't the appropriate approach be a much more significant diversion of state revenues than are now taking place?  (Why do we think that might not sit well with the chamber's out-state members?)

Not surprisingly, while repeating the usual canards about the economic and social importance of sports and conventions, the letter contains no reference  to the questionable, if not actually disastrous financial history of the CIB.

Does the Chamber approve of the secretive manner in which the CIB has operated for decades?  Is there no question why the new stadium was completed without plans for increased operating costs?

Does the Chamber have no curiosity about the disappearance of years of tax revenues which has never been explained?  Is it wise to hand the same people more money to enable them to make more of the same unsatisfactory decisions?

Is the Chamber's position supposed to parallel their support of the Kernan-Shepard proposals for more efficient government?  Is this really their idea of exemplary government operation, to be rewarded with additional millions of taxpayer dollars?

As indicated, we were disappointed - not surprised, but disappointed.

Silence is golden.

But also, under the circumstances, we'd say "dismaying" or even "alarming."  The circumstances to which we refer are these.

A few days ago there were indications in the media that Governor Daniels was considering presenting a state budget to the up-coming special session of the General Assembly which would include a plan to bail out the Capital Improvement Board (CIB).

Since that time an opaque, sound-proof curtain apparently has fallen over the scene.  We are led to wonder whether that curtain actually encloses a modern (smoke free?) version of the old "smoke filled room" in which so many secret decisions were made over the years.

We've been informed, by bloggers rather than the regular "news" media, of a meeting of the mayor with a group of people who basically are the same people who led us into the current financial swamp.  The list we saw of those present did not include the governor nor any specifically designated representative.  We repeat a petition to this group and to the governor. 

Please, please, do not now initiate any new or increased taxation to further subsidize this activity.

Without any background investigation as to how the present situation developed, it is fiscal insanity to increase funding for a body which operated in the red for ten years, decided in the midst of that time frame to build a three-quarter billion dollar sports palace, and aggravated the resulting problem by failing to provide for increased operating cost for the new stadium.

The insertion of bailout provisions into the state budget bill, with the obvious intent of minimizing any direct opposition, would be a reprehensible parliamentary fraud upon the taxpayers.  Your personal integrity demands better, Mitch.  Say it ain't so!

At the risk of seeming to be irreversibly naive, we would even recommend that this is an appropriate time to shift the problem to the occupants of the building who are the primary financial beneficiaries thereof, thereby making a tiny move toward reversal of the concept  that the taxpayer is somehow responsible for the profit or loss of any private business. 

Somebody in Washington might even notice!

Governor Daniels,...

...you couldn't possibly be more wrong.  Not only wrong, but unreasonable and unjustified.

This morning's paper tells us that you apparently intend to bail out the CIB by inserting some sort of plan into the state budget legislation in the upcoming special session.  You are quoted as saying it, "...is quite a natural and appropriate thing to do to incorporate something there...."

No, Governor.  Rather it is a blatant attempt to forestall negative votes in the process by including a disastrous proposal in a bill which everyone knows must be passed.  You're simply using legislative sleight of hand to coerce approval of something many legislators must surely disapprove.

Furthermore, the use of the word "appropriate' is completely IN-appropriate.  You will be aiding and abetting a group of incompetents who have misspent and wasted huge sums of public funds at a time when both the state and the city need every available dollar for legitimate governmental expenses.

Have you no interest in finding out how we got where we are?  Have you no interest in finding out where past expenditures have gone?

If, in fact, you do know why a tax collected for more than two decades for the specific purpose of paying for the construction of the RCA Dome was never used for that purpose, at least you owe us the facts on that.  If you do not know, how can you possibly advocate bailing out the very same people who have carried out this monstrously expensive charade?

If a boy spends his entire month's allowance on bubble gum, then tells you he doesn't have the money you gave him for a school book, would you pat him on the head and give him more money?

No, Governor.  Without a complete investigation, including an independent audit, bailing out these spendthrifts - despite possibly being politically natural - is most certainly not appropriate! 

How gullible...

Again ?

Two and a half years ago - September 26, 2006, to be exact - we posted the following scenario.

"A man is lying on the ground bleeding profusely.  A paramedic arrives, surveys the scene and decides the only thing to do is to start massive blood transfusions.  The result, we believe, would be a serious drain on the blood bank with little, if any, help to the victim.  Shouldn't the paramedic have tried to determine the source of the bleeding and stopped that first?  Or at least simultaneously?"

This was presented with reference to the city's financial problems.  It now seems to us to represent, even more accurately, the situation with the Capital Improvement Board (CIB).

There are numerous questions to be asked of, and answered by, city officials and CIB members, past and present.  Every aspect of the circumstances demands at the very least an independent audit of the board's fiscal practices.  There might even be the need to determine the possibility of malfeasance on the part of individuals.

BUT...no one in an official capacity, nor any "investigative" reporter in the media, seems to be interested in finding out just how we got where we are.  It's a crisis.  We don't have time to determine who dug the hole, how it was dug, nor are we particularly interested in whether they have even stopped digging.

We're just going to shovel more and more tax dollars into the pit, hoping against all hope - and certainly against all precedent - that the "miners" will finally decide they have hit the end of the mother lode of tax dollars.

We should live so long!