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Editor’s
Note: Things to come in Ohio?
The
Star Press...
Muncie-Delaware
County government
reorganization financial study released
Members of the public can comment
today during a 6 p.m. meeting at the Horizon Convention Center
By Keith Roysdon and Douglas Walker
May
31, 2011
MUNCIE
-- Local officials got their
first glimpse Tuesday evening of a financial impact study of
Muncie-Delaware
County government consolidation and reorganization.
Some
of them will get their first
chance to comment on it at a public hearing at 6 p.m. today at the
Horizon
Convention Center.
Todd
Donati, president of the Delaware
County Board of Commissioners, said the officials who will take action
on the
proposal, the commissioners and members of Muncie City Council, will
not
respond to questions at tonight’s event.
In
front of a standing-room-only crowd
of local officials and government observers, Jennifer Hudson of
Indianapolis
consulting company Crowe Horwath on Tuesday presented the financial
impact
study to a joint session of the Delaware County commissioners and
Muncie City
Council.
Donati
cautioned those at Tuesday’s
meeting that they would not be allowed to speak. That opportunity comes
during
tonight’s public hearing.
Although
Mayor Sharon McShurley asked
a few questions, she said she had received the report just before the
5:30 p.m.
meeting and couldn’t yet comment.
Attorney
Alan Wilson, a former mayor
who was part of the citizen committee that recommended the
consolidation, also
said he couldn’t comment until he had a chance to study the report.
The
committee recommended in 2010 that
local government be consolidated, eliminating the offices of mayor,
commissioners, Muncie City Council and Delaware County Council in favor
of a
15-member council including a county executive.
The
recommendation has been
controversial, with some officials backing it and others criticizing it.
The
proposal will go to a voter
referendum in November 2012. Both proponents and opponents say they
will wage a
public opinion campaign leading up to that vote.
During
Tuesday’s presentation, Hudson
offered scenarios in which the taxes paid on a home in Muncie, already
benefiting from tax caps, would not see an actual decrease in taxes
through
consolidation of city and county governments.
“It’s
really not saving the city
anything, because they’re already tapped out,” Donati said.
A
theoretical farm and small business
in Perry Township, meanwhile, would see property tax increases,
according to
Hudson.
Donati
suggested the shift in tax burden
would poorly impact unincorporated areas “where we have so much
potential for
growth.”
While
his fellow commissioners and
seven members of Muncie City Council present had almost no questions
for
Hudson, Donati did ask the consultant whether local officials had given
her
firm enough time to do a thorough analysis -- she said they had -- and
whether
such an analysis, which cost $70,000, had been needed.
“It
is beneficial for you all to have
this financial analysis,” Hudson said, calling it “a tool for all of
you to
make policy decisions about consolidation.”
“Well,
I’m glad we did it, then,”
Donati responded.
Read
it at the Star Press
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