Indiana

REVIEW NOW, REPEAL LATER

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

If you’re looking for Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard to call for a repeal of last year’s 65-percent in the County Option Income Tax, it’s not going to happen. Sources tell me in tonight’s State of the City address, the Mayor is going to call for the tax to be reviewed by the city’s High Performance Government Committee, which was created last year.

Sources say the Mayor would like to repeal the tax, but the city is still waiting to see how this year’s property tax reform passed out of the General Assembly will impact the budget. Lawmakers voted to pick up a number of levies, including child welfare, health care and the pre-1977 police pensions to ease the burden on property taxpayers.

Democrats will introduce a proposal on Friday to repeal the portion of the COIT that is supposed to go for police pensions since that levy has been picked up by the state, even though nowhere in the ordinance that created the tax does it say the money must go to police pensions, only public safety.

Sources say Ballard wants the tax to be reviewed by the bi-partisan high performance team, created by the previous administration with help from the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, so it can tell him whether the tax should be repealed or applied in some other public safety capacity.

The sources also say the Mayor wants the team to do a top to bottom review of local government to find efficiencies in all city-county departments and agencies.

In addition, the Mayor believes the entire tax could be repealed if lawmakers were to implement the Kernan-Shepard Commission report on streamlining local government.

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on April 09, 2008 (boomark / email).