Another try

At our age, sometimes the old memory cells work - sometimes they don’t.  Today they kicked in, for some reason.  It started, we guess, because of current city financial problems and speculation as to where the necessary (?) revenues would be found.

We found ourselves remembering a post to this website we made six and one half years ago, and reiterated four and a half years ago - (12/8/05 and 2/14/07).   It was in these essays that we suggested going directly to the source and applying what we chose to call Revenue Increment Financing - or RIF.

Estimates have been made in the past that the stadium/convention center would bring in an addition (that’s an increment!) of some $200 million per year.  Now we’ll make a guess, based on that guess.  We’d propose that as much as 80 percent of that amount, as gross revenue, probably will flow directly into an identifiable area downtown.

We’d call that a revenue increment district which would be the subject to our RIF assessment.  Under the current law, the entire increase of incremental property tax revenue is diverted away from usual and ordinary municipal costs toward debt payment. (Well, at least that’s the way it is supposed to work.)

But we wouldn’t be greedy.  We’d only suggest that the huge increase in gross downtown revenues be subjected to a 20 percent assessment, with the funds dedicated to those usual and ordinary municipal costs.

That would provide a new $32 million in revenues.  It would bail out the city from its current hole, and leave a few bucks over for parks, libraries and IndyGo.

And the beauty of the whole thing is this.  If spending public funds can be justified by calling the action "investment," then calling this function an "assessment" gets the politician out of trouble for raising "taxes."  And it wouldn’t hit the individual taxpayer - excuse us, we mean assessee - at all.

A positive deal for the politician - if there is any desire to balance the scale between the individual and downtown businesses for decades of the opposite approach.

Are you listening, Mayor?

Comments

[Leslie Baker]

Yo! Mr. Ballard! He's talking to you! There are a few of us here who have been waiting for these answers for a LONG time...where are they? Where are you?? Or would you rather Mr. McCarthy address these question to Ms. Kennedy?