Sixteen Republicans and one Democrat helped give Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard his first budget.  The Mayor says the $1.1 Billion spending plans provides more dollars for public safety and closes a $26 million shortfall and still spends less than last year.

Ballard called the budget “balanced, comprehensive and transparent.”  Democrats said it fell short, primarily by not delivering the 100 additional police officers which they say were promised as part of last year’s 65-percent increase in the County Option Income Tax.

An effort to delay passing the budget failed.  Following that Democrats tried to pass an amendment calling for the hiring of 25 additional officers by transferring funds within the public safety budget.  However City Controller Dave Reynolds said Democrats wanted to use federal grant money to pay for police which was prohibited by law.  The Mayor added he wants to hire more officers but disregarded the 100 figure, saying he wants Public Safety Director Scott Newman to determine what the actual manpower needs are.

The budget leaves a small balance of about $800,000.  Money was added for township assessors and the Sheriff’s original budget request of went from $111 million to $85 million, although the agency won’t have to directly pay for emergency dispatch services.

The budget is broken into several catergories.  Here’s a breakdown.

• Airport Authority, 28-1.
• Capital improvement Board, 29-0.
• Health & Hospital Corporation, 24-5.
• Indy Go, 24-5.
• Marion County Public Library, 24-5.
• Police Special Service District ($222 million), 19-10.
• Fire Special Service District ($94 million), 23-6.
• Solid Waste Collection, 22-7.
• All that other stuff like public safety, metropolitan development ($49 million), community affairs, public works($196 million), parks and recs ($29 million), 17-12.

And if you thought things were tough now, just wait 2010 when the one-percent tax caps kick in.

I wish City-County Council Democrats would get their act together and start acting like the loyal opposition as opposed to the Keystone Cops of the Council.

With tonight’s budget vote pending, Democrats held a news conference complaining, once again, about the Ballard administration failing to hire 100 police officers and wondering where the money went.  In addition they introduced an ordinance tonight that would hire 25 police officers which would be funded mostly by taking money out of public safety’s contractual services budget.  Someone apparently didn’t do their homework because the money the Democrats wanted to hire officers would have come from contracts used to maintain the hiring and promotional process, legal settlements and other services.  Of course all this could have been avoided if Democrats wrote the original public safety ordinance to say money “shall” be used to hire 100 additional police officers as opposed to simply “authorizing the hiring” of 100 police officers.

Also at their news conference, they  “wondered” where the $5 million in anti-violence funds went for youth programs, community outreach and crime prevention.  The answer is nowhere because today was the deadline for groups to apply for the funds.  By the way, at last count the number was 85 and growing.  But you see what I mean?

This is not the first time in this process my Democratic friends have fallen short.  They complained about the Council using the Administration and Finance Committee to reconcile a number of city agency fund balances when they did the same thing a few years ago.

In addition if you are also planning to complain about the budget when it comes before a final vote it would help if your members didn’t vote for it in committee.  A quick check of documents shows out of the 86 budget votes cast by the Council members in separate committees, there were only 6 “no” votes.  Bill Oliver cast two “no”votes; one of which was to cut the arts budget by more than $500,000.   Joanne Sanders, Vern Brown and Mary Moriarty Adams cast one “no” vote each in committee and Bob Lutz was the lone Republican “no” vote on the Airport Authority’s budget.

I hope my friends on the left side of the aisle (my left, facing them) will learn from this experience that being the loyal opposition means having your facts and your act together.  This city needs a healthy two-party system to function.  Three, if you count the Libertarians.  Council Democrats have done enough messing around and it’s time for them Dems to get their act together.

How do you start a small business in the 21st Century?

• Start a big business and then you wait.*

*Of course you could always get a government bailout and then go back and continue the bad behavior that got you in the financial mess in the first place.

I have some follow-up to a few items from yesterday. I hope you find them interesting…

Local Stadium Bailout?

• If anyone is looking for the state to help bailout the new Lucas Oil Stadium and its operation costs, forget about it for now. Governor Mitch Daniels says it unlikely the state will get involved. City officials however say they are confident that if they have to have discussions with the Indianapolis Colts, the Colts will be “good corporate citizens.”

Poll Watching

• Although he says he doesn’t put too much faith in polls, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels Saturday questioned the Indy Star poll which put him just four points ahead of Jill Long Thompson. Speaking to a gathering of Hamilton County Republicans Daniels said several other independent polls show him with at least a 15-point lead. He used the analogy, “if you have five thermometers and four of them say it’s 85 and one says it’s 35, the odds are there is something wrong with that one thermometer.”

Budget Delay Denied

• City of Indianapolis budget officials say there’s no reason to delay passing a budget. Council Democrats have introduced an ordinance postponing passing the budget until November 17. They argue the Mayor should wait until he has a better idea of what the city’s finances will be from the Department of Local Government and Finance. However City Controller Dave Reynolds says they have accounted for possible changes in the levy, so there’s no reason to delay passing the budget.

Ranker and File

• Barack Obama may like JLT, but that affection doesn’t seem to be trickling down to the rank and file in Indiana.  The word is that Obama’s foot soldiers aren’t promoting JLT’s candidacy as they go door to door.  As one reportedly said, “we don’t want her to be a drag on our efforts.”  This isn’t good news because JLT scaled back a lot of her operations, in part, because she said they were being duplicated by the Obama campaign.

Apparently there were quite a few things that happened since yesterday. Here they are.

The Marion County Property Tax Board of Appeals will vote Friday on approving about $63 million worth of tax appeals. One property pwner say a $9 million decrease in his original assessment. And these are just the first batch. No word yet on whether lawmakers will try to increase the tax rate to compensate for the loss in assessed value.

While everyone in his mother is asking why were County Option Income Taxes raised to fund 100 new officers that were never hired (which is not accurate because it was never included in the original ordinance), some people may also want to ask why the extra criminal court that was supposed to help alleviate jail overcrowding by getting more inmates through the system, never happened and instead the Marion County judges created an extra family court to deal with the backlog of child custody and child support cases. The judges have been engaging in better case management to deal with the jail overcrowding issue.

City-County Council Democrats have introduced an ordinance to delay passing the budget until November 17. They argue Mayor Ballard should wait until the city has all the numbers regarding property tax assessments.

Marion County Democratic Chairman Ed Treacy apparently has been taking Enztye and asked one of his members to step down for reportedly missing too much work. Treacy put out a release saying County Surveyor Mary Catherine Barton should resign for not showing up to do her job. Apparently Ed isn’t taking enough of the product because he’s never asked other Democrats who’ve either missed work or gotten in trouble with the law to step down. And by the way, Barton lost slating isn’t running for re-election so she’ll be gone in January anyway.

And finally, what about the polls regarding the Governor’s race? Here are the latest, believe the ones that reinforce your political world view..

Daniels - 46, JLT - 42 (MoE - 4%), Indy Star.
Daniels - 56, JLT - 40 (MoE - 4.5%), Rasmussen.
Daniels - 52, JLT - 31, (MoE - 3.5 %) Bellwether Research.
My personal opinion is that the race is probably more 53-46 or 54-45, Daniels. Which is about what he won the last time around. The word on the street from political insiders is that “everyone knows who’s going to win, now we’re all just betting on the margins.”

I have a major project to work on today, so there won’t be much blogging.  In the meantime, share your thoughts on the massive government bailout and take over of just about every bad mortgage and loan in America.I really wish my parents hadn’t taught me to be so responsible. 

Just to keep everyone on the same page, here are the latest polls (all out in the last 48 hours) regarding the Presidential race and the State of Indiana.

• McCain - 47, Obama - 43. (MoE - 4%) Big Ten Battleground Poll
• Obama - 47, McCain - 44. ( MoE - 4%), Indy Star.
• McCain - 51, Obama - 45, (MoE - 3.5 %), CNN/Time.

What this says is the McCain has a slight lead, but Obama is not to be taken for granted.  The person who wins the ground game will win the state.  It’s just that simple.

Marion County taxpayers will save more than a million dollars due to a reduction of fees over at the Indianapolis Public Bond Bank.

Bond Bank Executive Director Kevin Taylor says the agency has been charging excess fees to local governments for floating bonds and it was time to lower them.  The Bond Bank cannot levy taxes so it charges local governments fees to issue bonds and maintain them.

He expects taxpayers to save $1.2 million over the next two years.

When asked where the excess fees went, Taylor said previous administrations had used them to help fund other agencies.  However, he said it was time to end the practice and save the taxpayers money.

Since 1991, the Bond Bank has issued nearly $5.5 billion worth of bonds.

I watched the gubernatorial debate three times in the last few hours to try to do a thoughtful analysis.  To do this right, I graded the candidates the way I do my students in my speech classes.  They get grades for style, content and delivery.

Mitch Daniels

• Content - A. You did a good job of giving specifics.  We can argue what the facts mean in the grand scheme of things, but details work.
• Style - B+. Good job of taking the high road and not attacking your opponents, but pointing out discrepancies in their arguments
• Delivery - B.  You work well in small groups and in one-on-one interactions.  Work on the pauses, because it breaks up the flow of the points your trying to make and you can come across as unsure of the point you’re trying to make.  You know the material so relax and let it flow.
• Overall grade: B+

Jill Long Thompson

• Content - C+. While you seemed to have no problem pointing out the flaws of your opponent, you didn’t give voters a reason to pick you.  Times are tough all over, everyone knows that, but you didn’t make a compelling case for you.  Also, you need to give specifics.
• Style - C.  While you went on the attack, you didn’t say anything new.  I’ll chalk part of that of up to covering your campaign.  But you needed to get a headline out of this debate. 
• Delivery - B. Your delivery was smoother than Daniels, but you repeated yourself a lot and you were a little to stilted.  We know your running for Governor, that’s why your up there.  You do get a couple points for acknowledging flood victims.
• Overall Grade: C+/C.

Andy Horning

• Content - C+.  You get major points for promoting less government, but if you’re going to reference the Constitution, you need to cite specifics.  You did a good job in citing the Common School fund, although I disagree with your interpretation, you should have done more of that.
• Style - B+.  You get major points for style.  You stuck with the theme of less government.  And you used humor on stage in a appropriate manner which is never  bad thing. 
• Delivery - A.  Always you had great delivery.  You were smooth, direct and engaging.  And I felt as if you were talking to the audience and not at them.
• Overall Grade: B.

We’ll do this again after the next debate.

Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard and Marion County Sheriff Frank Anderson have reached a budget agreement that both sides say will fund public safety and allow the city to live within its means.

The Sheriff originally asked for $111 million, but later reduced that request to $92 million.  Under the agreement the Sheriff  will receive about $86 million, which was Ballard’s original budget request.  However, it will no longer have to directly pay for emergency dispatch and for a net gain of about $8 million, since the department won’t have its budget reduced to pay for the services.

According to City Comptroller Dave Reynolds, dispatch will be paid directly out of the the Marion County Emergency Agency’s budget.    To cover part of that costs city officials say they will use about $3.3 million in additional tax revenue that was discovered due to a clerical error.

At the end of the day, the city will only have about $600,000 left in its overall fund balance.  That number was originally just over $4 million, but the additional MECA costs as well as the additional $2.6 million for the townships assessors reduced that amount.

So while the city is still managing to live within its means, it won’t have much of a life.