Indy Tax Dollars

April Fool!!

In October???  Well, that was our reaction to the format of this week’s editorial in the Indianapolis Business Journal.  The headline for that essay says, “Pacers negotiation could be dicey.”

We have to admit that much of this item closely parallels our latest blog, labeled “A tale of two cities....”   Their wording is more specific than ours. The message is the same.  The city should be prepared for some (we would say) outrageous financial demands from the basketball team.

The team owner wants a “major redo” of the building, without telling us just what that means and how much it might cost.  He tries to make us feel better by saying it would be less expensive than a new building!  No mention of the recent updates paid for from the annual $16 million subsidy from the city.

He also wants a 25 year lease extension (currently $1 per year) which would help make the team “viably financially.”  According to its own statements, the team has never been “viable financially” - that is operated in the black - since it first set foot in Market Square Arena 43 years ago!  Just what does he have in mind here?  This is a business operation which, under anything close to normal operations, would have declared bankruptcy and shut its doors decades ago.

A new contract would also make the “fan experience” better.  It is hard to find anything in the Constitution or any specific law which makes a taxpayer responsible for the comfort of a sports fan!!

But here’s where the April Fool joke comes in.  Smack dab in the middle of the editorial is an insert which negates the whole thing.  We quote.

”Bankers Life Fieldhouse is a key city asset that should be updated." (Bold face sic.)

They were just joking. All other text should be disregarded. In order to be “world class” the city must be home to a professional basketball team, and if that means forgetting all logic and common sense, so be it. The taxpayer will be once again be hung out to dry for the benefit of a private, for-profit business.

Another extensive article in the same issue tells us how successful the drive for non-basketball events at the fieldhouse has been. Other than a few words touting an estimate, from a study bought by the team, of “economic impact,” there is no mention of the fact that the city - the owner of the building - receives not one penny of the revenues pouring in through the sale of tickets, parking, food and beverage, etc.. Presumably a new 25 year contact would continue, or improve for the team, that fact of life.

Oh well, maybe a different time table would really be more apropos. Instead of shouting “April fool”, the Capital Improvement Board will, once again, just dress the taxpayer in a Santa Claus suit and let it go at that!

And the media outcry will be as deafening as that cloud of butterflies in the garden!

 

A tale of two cities...

...with sincere apologies to Mr. Dickens, and our thanks for the wording of the title.  We’re referring to the two faces of the city of Indianapolis.

The first one is represented in the detailed, frightening story in this morning’s paper about the inability of judicial and law enforcement facilities to protect the citizenry from intimidation – and death.

In a very few words of a really, and deservedly so, lengthy article, it is suggested that a part of the problem is budgetary.  Lack of funds for an adequate public safety function.

This morning’s paper also carries "An IndyStar Editorial.  A part of it reads as follows:

"Shamefully, despite years of such intimidation, Indianapolis still does not budget any of its own money to protect witnesses.  Instead, the city relies on small federal grants that don’t begin to cover the true needs."  (Our emphasis)

The second face is found in yesterday’s paper.  Today’s story carried a normal one-column headline.  Yesterday's headline, across the front page, was in half inch high, bold face type, above the fold.  It gave us the earth-shaking news that the owners of the local basketball team intended to keep the team in the city.  We found the headline somewhat muted by wording within the story itself.

The owner of the team is quoted as saying, "We’re sitting down to try to extend the lease for the next 25 years... Simon (owner) says Bankers Life can be made viable for another quarter century - viable financially, and for the fan experience - with a ‘major redo’ that would be considerably cheaper than building a new arena."  (Our emphasis again.)

That’s the lease which turns over the building to the Pacers for $1 - yes that’s one dollar ! - per year while handing the team all revenues from the property.  We’re not sure just what he means by "viable financially," since the city is currently covering for alleged "red figures" by giving the team an additional $16 million a year.  That’s part of a ten year agreement.  Is he figuring on just writing that, or more, into a 25-year extension?

Are we going to get any idea of what constitutes a "major redo" for the gentleman?  We believe several millions of dollars worth of "updates" have already come out of that annual gift.  And what is the genesis of any thought about "building a new arena?"

We have precedent for serious warning.  Anyone who has lived here for more than a year or two, and has an IQ of 50 or higher, should immediately recognize the beginning of another financial assault on the taxpayer.

And now comes thought of a third face for the city.  Will city leaders - public and private - continue, or even increase, the use of public dollars to prop up private, for-profit corporations and their billionaire owners?  Or are they going to start recognizing, and funding solutions for, the problems facing the average citizen every day?

Which comes first?  Freedom from intimidation as a result of an adequately funded municipal function?  Or a more comfortable seat for the basketball fan and some additional bucks for the provider thereof?

Public safety is a primary responsibility of municipal government.

 

Hunger and Poverty

Lots of attention to these two crises in the city of Indianapolis these days.  Yesterday we wrote on an IBJ article about hunger.  Today we continue with another front page story - poverty - in the on-line issue of the same paper.  This time we add into the mix an item from the morning paper.  Also a front page, headline story!

The IBJ poverty story contains this statement: "But the challenge of poverty growth’s nearly outpacing population growth is also fundamentally a structural one for a city that already faces budget and revenue challenges." (Our emphasis.)

We shift now to this morning’s paper and this front page, above-the fold headline: "Simon: Pacers staying in Indiana."  Sort of a "bad news/good news" deal.  Right?  Well, maybe.

The "maybe" question arises with a paragraph in this story, which reads as follows: "Simon says Bankers Life can be made viable for another quarter-century - viable financially, and for the fan experience - with a ‘major redo’ that would be considerably cheaper than building a new arena."  (Our emphasis again.)  "Building a new arena???  And they "...will sit down with the city and other people and work it out."  We're pretty sure "other people" does not mean taxpayers.                                                             

Please pardon our cynicism, but that sounds to us like a giant caveat about the "staying" power of the Pacers.  Since the non-viable, 18-year old present building cost more than $180 million, and a new building would run a lot more, we believe the taxpayers are entitled to know how many hundreds of thousands (millions?) of dollars the Pacers assume would be needed to cover a "major redo."  All to be added to the taxpayer burden!

We will suggest, one more time, that those actually in charge of municipal finances, whoever that might be, are going to have to start taking an honest, realistic look at both the economic and moral questions of  the priorities of tax revenue distribution in this city.

Why the apparent deep chasm between hunger and poverty of its citizens, and the viability of an entertainment business and its "fan experience"?  (An entertainment business which cannot operate without public subsidy and which the average taxpayer will most likely never be able to afford.)  Why do programs of benefit to citizens get discussed and studied while funding of professional sports sails smoothly ahead, all too frequently by an increase or addition of a new tax.  Which is really more important? 

Is the priority determination really that difficult to see?

 

 

 

 

 

Irony??

We wonder whether we are alone in our reaction to today’s IBJ online story about a conference considering the serious impact of a widespread hunger problem in Indianapolis.

Those gathered at the conference seemed to have been pretty much in agreement that a much larger "investment" should be made toward the solution of the problem.  An investment by whom?

The article concludes with a statement by a representative of the Pacers basketball team about the necessity of caring for the children specifically.  This gentleman made his remarks in an address to the group.

The gentleman in question is a part of the operational administration of the Indianapolis Pacers.  Would he be willing to put professional sports - and the Pacers especially - on a somewhat leaner diet?  After all, the public dollars which give professional sports such massive subsidy come from a Food and Beverage Tax.

How many of these hungry kids could be assisted by diverting to them the annual gift of $16 million to the Pacers??  How many more by the city sharing some of the non-basketball fieldhouse revenues, all of which currently fall into the Pacers’ coffers?  Surely the team could afford an annual lease of more than $1 - one dollar!  And, while we’re at it, how about a couple of bucks less in city maintenance and operation of the football palace at the other end of Georgia Street?  And a lease more favorable to the city for the team to use this three quarters of a billion dollar Colts’ playground?

We have no problem with a program to reduce hunger for these kids.  (We do wonder how many of them lack food while carrying an expensive cell phone.)  But we foresee financial demands which will also include suggested tax increases to meet them.

Perhaps that need should be at least partly financed by an income tax on those who, directly or indirectly, depend on that tax on the food of others for their own edibles!

Immortalized??

Now really!!  A thirteen foot bronze statue of a football player was put on display.  But since the paper has used that word, we feel free to use another.  "Idolatry."

In combination, Sections A and C of this morning’s paper give us about four full pages of text and pictures glorifying the persona and the career of Peyton Manning.

We’re told he helped turn Indianapolis into a "world class city."  We are also given, without a trace of embarrassment or remorse, an admission by then governor Daniels that the city and state submitted to a three quarters of a billion dollar case of extortion.

Under threats by the billionaire owner to move the football team, the taxpayers were put on the hook for a new stadium - probably forever, based on the history of how this kind of debt was (mis)handled in the past.  That owner is quoted as saying the stadium "...is an incredible facility that that man built."  (Our emphasis.)

Even given the history of the outrageously favorable treatment that local government and media have handed professional sports, it is a little - but only a little - surprising that the words "tax" or "taxpayer" do not appear on those four pages.

Wouldn’t the statue be more realistic by showing Manning standing on the shoulders of an individual labeled "taxpayer?"

Except for the admission by the former governor as noted above, one might read the paper and think that the idol not only financed the building but even laid on the brick and mortar personally!!

We congratulate Mr. Manning on a wonderful career.  We thank him for the many good things he has actually done for the city.  But we should remember that all this was not a charitable operation.  He was paid several million dollars over these same years, as opposed to the average taxpayer who could not afford to watch him perform in "his" building.  Again, we thank him, and we wish him well in the future.

For the paper, we would hope for a truer, more realistic and less over-stated, saccharine approach to "news" reporting in the future. Including a truly objective study of municipal usage of tax dollars being handed to professional sports team owners.

By the way, who paid for the statue?  Did we miss that?