Higher taxes are all but certain for Madison County as the Alexandria City Council voted to approve COIT at its Oct. 19 meeting. The measure would primarily benefit Anderson city employees, but with Madison County taxpayers picking up the bulk of the tab.
Now with 49.5% of the County Income Tax Council’s “allocated votes,” the County Option Income Tax needs only the approval of the Madison County Council or of the Elwood City Council, which both vote next week.
Upcoming Votes
- Madison County Council, Mon., Oct. 26 at 7 p.m.
- Elwood City Council, Tues., Oct. 27 at 7 p.m.
The local firefighters union has a lot of skin in the game, selling scare tactics to the community. Union reps are floating the idea that without the tax, lost jobs will thrust the community into immediate danger with longer response times and fewer hands to save lives and put out fires. It sounds feasible, but fails to address the fact that as staffing increases, individual firefighter effectiveness declines, an economic concept known as diminishing returns.
Further, as their salaries increase beyond what the market will bear, performance drops as men feel less inclined to run into a burning building. Over-compensated employees are simply “paid too much” to face that kind of peril. The same concept applies to law enforcement, where overpaid officers feel less likely to chase an armed gunman.
On the other hand, too few public servants paid too little, ironically, yields the same result as overstaffing and paying too much. Therefore, if public safety is the key issue, then we must find the optimal level of both staffing and compensation that taxpayers can support.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
The only problem you are failing to see is that with this tax increase most, if not all, of the fire and police departments are not looking to increase their man power. Another point you are not seeing is that most, if not all, of the fire and police personnel have in fact not received a raise for even the cost of living in the last few years. Granted this is a fact for most businesses across Indiana. However, your portrait of the Indiana fireman and policeman as overpaid, is far from the truth and a spit in the face for these public servants. Normal citizens would not run into a burning building to rescue someone or save a property. The normal citizen would not rush into a building where they know an armed person, meaning to do harm, is waiting for them. These men and women who the normal citizen would call in their times of need are no less than a blessing when called upon.
Here is more information: most fire and police departments have in fact put a hiring freeze on their departments. Most fire and police departments have had to cut their budgets by hundreds of thousands of dollars only to still not have enough revenue to sustain their current employees. Most, if not all, fire and police departments are looking to use this tax to replace the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars the state has taken away from them with their new property tax reform.
Let’s point the fingers at the right people, shall we? Because of the property taxes (the revenue that schools and cities get for their budgets) were cut, the legislators and governor told the city and local officials that the LOIT/COIT was their means to make up for the short falls the in the budget. The legislators and governor approved the cities/county to levy this tax. The cities are merely doing what they can by cutting services, cutting budgets, cutting employees and still can not managing to get their budgets down below or close to the mark the legislators and governor has set. This LOIT/COIT is the natural next step in the evolution to satisfy the whims and wishes of a GOP led government who has lost contact with the cities in the State of Indiana.
To address each of your points:
1. Fire & police are not looking to increase manpower.
In your opinion, is there ever a time to decrease manpower? Or, in your view, must we always increase staff or remain unchanged?
2. Fire & police have not received a raise.
Did they need a raise? I could use a raise, but as I’m working for myself I’ll just have to pay myself more.
You may not think so, but it’s OK for public servants to take pay cuts — they’ll just find other, better-paying employment. And those who quit will be replaced by eager people willing to prove themselves equally capable for less. As an example, you can afford to hire more people at $12/hr. than you can at $17/hr. But unfortunately, labor unions lock out a number of hard working men & women who would have been more than willing to work for less than the union rate. They are the unsung victims of labor unions, those who are priced out of the market.
3. To say they are overpaid is a spit in the face.
While you may be looking out for a select few, I am looking out for the unemployed and also the low-, middle- and high-income wage earners whose taxes help pay the select few: those heroes who fight our fires and patrol our streets.
But, isn’t the average Joe also a hero for paying his taxes on time? For pulling off to the side of the road to let an emergency vehicle pass? For running a reputable small business that employs the public servant’s spouse or children? What makes a taxpayer less of a person than a public servant?
4. Average citizens don’t rise to the level of a public servant.
Public servants serve the public. Please see my above response.
5. Despite budget cuts, fire & police have insufficient revenue to sustain their current employees.
Was there a legitimate need for maintaining their current employees? Or just because?
6. The state’s property tax reform “has taken away” millions of dollars from fire & police.
Once-ballooning tax revenues have now burst, and no one had a contingency plan. That is, unless you consider COIT/LOIT. I will grant you one thing: COIT gives local leaders the opportunity to decide whether to hammer the tax base and encourage fewer people to move in, or to make their county more competitive with other surrounding counties by having a low tax rate.
COIT provides politicians the proverbial noose with which to hang themselves. We’ll see how it pans out in the next election.
7. A GOP-led government has lost contact with the people of Indiana.
The Republican Party is the party of true equal opportunity. We stand to provide every individual the equal opportunity for prosperity — and never the equal opportunity of outcomes. In other words, government should put everyone on the same starting line and not on the same finish line.
To do otherwise would be enslavement, as evidenced by our current welfare state, which belittles and demeans an entire class of citizens by coddling and robbing them of the motivation for personal development and the incentive to seek success and prosperity.
Whereas, the Democrat Party exists for power-hungry politicians to promise as many taxpayer-funded entitlements as possible. It makes them look like the savior of the down-trodden, the breadwinner for the poor. They like to appease the poor with handouts to keep them complacent. Truly shameful.
In addition, some far-left liberals have no problem with breaking the backs of entrepreneurs who run the small businesses and pay the bulk of the taxes. For them, the hunger for power extends not only to career politicians. Power-hungry corporations also stand to gain much from lucrative government contracts. Look at how General Electric has positioned itself to rake in the dough with government’s multi-billion-dollar investment in green energy technologies. Even Google is in on the take. With government-financed broadband initiatives, more users see more of Google’s online ads.
Yes, some GOP officials are out of touch, namely Dick Lugar. He supported the bank bailout (TARP), the auto bailout and the credit card legislation that encouraged people to spend, spend, spend… and max out their credit cards. Totally irresponsible. The times I have written him, I get the same canned response. A lot like your response that the GOP is out of touch.
If the GOP is out of touch, then the Dems must be on another planet.
The fire department did hire new people last year, including the Chief Clendenens son, and the police department is in the process of hiring new officers.
As far as compensation, what the police and fire unions tout is their base pay only. Almost every officer receives specialty pays and overtime. I think that you would be surprised as to what their actual take-home pay is.
Mr. Baldridge and Mr. Huffman:
You two need to talk to some of the counsels outside of Anderson. That’s the part of being out of touch with your surrounding areas that I am talking about. Positions being filled because they were vacated is not an additional manpower be hired. There is going to be overtime when it comes to this type of work. It is not like a fireman or a police man can flip a switch and shut down for the day when they are in the middle of something. I think if you take a pole none of these employees are telling themselves, “oh, gee I wish I could put in some overtime today.” I think you will find that consensus with most jobs.
Do you know the training that a fireman or police man must go through to become who they are? When you say things like they will just get another higher paying job and that there will be someone just as eager to take his place this may be true. However, that community and department looses time in training, experience, and report building with that community and must start off from scratch with a ‘fresh’ face. Now from a business point of view you have just lost time, productivity, and knowledge of the business, because now that all has to be retaught. That is not efficiency! That is actually a loss in productivity.
Police and fire personnel are not overpaid. Again, you are out of touch, if you compare state and national salaries you will find police officers in this area to be the lower paid. Oh and by the way fire and police personnel pay their taxes as well. Taxes are expected to be paid. There are laws governing this. I don’t see how doing what you are expected is going above and beyond. There are citizens out there that exhibit ‘hero’ type actions, however I said normal which I was trying to equate with average citizen would not be expected to do such things. Fire and police personnel are expected to do these things because it is their CHOSEN profession. I don’t have time right now to answer your other points right now so I will come back to it at a later date. But I will say this…you get what you pay for.
John,
While you argue for higher wages for protective services occupations (when the money just isn’t there), let’s look at the opportunity that awaits folks in surrounding states for similar professions.
Firefighter Median Wages
========================
Illinois, $50,550 per year
Michigan, $43,310 per year
Indiana, $40,950 per year
Ohio, $38,890 per year
Kentucky, $30,090 per year
Police & Sheriff’s Patrol Officers Median Wages
================================================
Illinois, $63,630 per year
Michigan, $52,700 per year
Ohio, $49,570 per year
Indiana, $42,810 per year
Kentucky, $37,090 per year
Another employer doesn’t necessarily mean another occupation. An individual, acting in his own interests, has the freedom to take his training elsewhere. Nothing is stopping him/her from making more elsewhere in protective services, although labor unions often block an outstanding employee from the opportunity to make what he is truly worth because of those pesky union contracts set up to protect those with seniority and to protect powerful union bosses.
You can twist and turn the data however you like to make your point. However, I think my data clearly shows the grand opportunity that awaits those willing to move to greener pastures.
Sources:
1. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2009).
2. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics “Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2008-2009 Edition.”
3. HR Answers, Inc. “Salary Source” (1999).
4. PAQ Services, Inc. “SalaryExpert” (2009).
5. Salary.com (2009)
John, How come Anderson needs 120+ police officers with a smaller population than Muncie with only 98? Or firefighter since Muncie only has about 80 now?
Also as far as just regular people doing these jobs your surrounded by a lot of volunteer fire departments and how many police are on the auxiliary now that aren’t paid? So yes the average person would run into a burning building or fight crime… as these people do it for FREE.
I believe a lot of people are overlooking the fact that the police & firefighters’ pay is only PART of the city’s budget, thus, stop acting like little children when addressing the issue of COIT and budget shortfalls.
I am sure EVERYONE who lives and works in the city of Anderson ( or other cities in Madison county) would love to get a pay raise. Guess what? That isn’t going to happen this year, so stop whining!
IF it is simply impossible to cut any staff or pay from protective services because of our dire needs as a community, then why aren’t the police & firemen standing up and asking the mayor to make cuts in other departments that are not as essential to the community’s safety instead of acting as if their departments are the straw that will break the camel’s back?
Mayor Ockomon has stated that he won’t voluntarily cut city employees through layoffs because, well, that would just be too mean, or some other silly excuse. I hate to break it to him, but there are people all over town struggling just to keep up with the recent increases in their sewer, trash, and wheel tax fees. These people, who face potential layoffs at their own jobs, DO NOT believe that the personal benefit to these 200 city employees in various departments, who get to keep their jobs, should outweigh the needs of the whole community of tens of thousand of people who need to feed their families! We as a community are not going to survive if we spend our time taxing ourselves to death, instead of focusing on keeping government to a minimum, so we can live our lives.
If the Library’s board of directors is brave enough to sit down, evaluate their shortfall, and make the tough decisions and change to continue to offer services UNDER budget, then why isn’t the Mayor asking the same of every department in City government? Is the library the only entity in the county with a real backbone?
Hey Mayor Ockomon! “Ask not what the taxpayers can do for you, ask what you can do for the taxpayers!”
I am not arguing higher wages. Many of the employees are absorbing some of the increases in health insurance that continually go up each year. Raises! Well I am afraid that boat won’t sail for several years at this rate, if at all. What I am arguing is not getting yourself in the situation Muncie is in. Muncie has 98 officers because Muncie can not afford anymore that that. Muncie would not be cutting officer from their force if they did feel they had to. How many officer Muncie has now and how many officers Muncie needs is two different issues. Lets not forget that Ball State has their own police department as well to augment those in the city of Muncie. So if we add the two departments together we would more than likely come up to nearly the same numbers.
As Todd’s number revile, Indiana fireman and police officer are st the mid and lower levels of pay for the region. However, Todd is failing to see cities and counties would be loosing a fireman or police officer that is well trained and experienced in their profession. It takes anywhere from 4 to 6 months to send a fireman or police officer through the necessary training and get them to a starting point of the officer that just left. It takes more time and money to get the additional years of training to reach the point where a veteran fireman or police man was before they left that department. You can’t throw just anyone in to a fire truck or police car and expect them to just do a good job. There is more knowledge and responsibility to these professions than that. Now are you going to still tell me that it will not hurt the citizens of the cities/counties if they start loosing pubic safety personnel?
Carol has a good poit, .25% of the COIT revenue is going to Public Safety. Again, the most important thing to come away from this discussion is this was a measure the state legislators and governor gave to the city/county governments to make up for the short falls in the budgets they were receiving from the state. (a point noone seems to want to touch) The remaining percentage of the COIT, something like .5% is going toward homestead credit. This is used to help the general public with property taxes. So it is not like public safety is getting the majority of this tax collection.
Here is one thing you have to ask yourself Carrol. If you had a business that provided trash collection services to your community, would you charge them half or three quarters the price it cost you to collect the trash? Talk to some of the city government and you will find to keep your city utilities charges low, they were picking up a portion of the bill. And each year the utility service’s prices increase. Until just recently your utility bills haven’t risen. However, since the budget cuts from the state has come down utilities bills have risen, because the money that the cities were using to augment your utility bill is no longer there. If you don’t believe me people just ask your city official. You all can spew your own conspiracy theories on this site or you can go get answers from your councilmen/women. Or better yet sit in on some council meetings and you will see what our cities are up against and why they are doing what they are doing. Then you can pose the questions to them that you are posting on this web page.
I will leave you with this last thought:
The Republican Party is the party of true equal opportunity. We stand to provide every individual the equal opportunity for prosperity — and never the equal opportunity of outcomes. In other words, government should put everyone on the same starting line and not on the same finish line. — Todd Baldridge
I feel your definition is a little skewed equality is equality across the board — start to finish. What you are describing is competition. In a race everyone start at the same point, however the winner is the one who comes in first and there is always a loser. The winner gets a prize for their efforts and everyone coming in behind them get a participation ribbon. I don’t any claims to either party, I look at the candidate and ask myself I they will do a good job in that office. I have voted for democrat, republican and independent alike. And I believe in helping those in need. Some of the folks on government assistance needed temporarily until they get back on their feet. Some need it on a more permanent basis. But I do not think that the government offering assistance is a bad thing. It needs more structure and avenues of to lead it participants to a more self sufficient life style. I think you offers all of the stigmas Mr. Baldridge stated because of its lack of structure.
The thing with a government ran organization, is that they are a ‘not for profit organizations’ and not part of the capitalist main stream. So you can’t really compare them with a business who make a profit. The return that cities/counties get are providing a good, reliable and economical public service. This return allows them to give is a cut in utility bills to its citizens. What I mean is the state give enough money to the cities to fund the operations. Any excess at the end of the year, goes back to the state coffers and the city does not get to keep any excess of the general funds. These funds are no longer there and the state is not giving enough to the cities to provide these cuts. The cities/counties are now making the citizens pay for the services they can no longer help them with.
Please go talk to your councilmen/women and not just in your home city but in others as well to get a board picture of the the situation your cities of Indiana are in.
Anderson City Council – The council members on stage (Oct 8th) should have formally introduced themselves & the position they held. After all they had the “public” speakers to announce their names, & where they lived. I for one did not know who these Council people were or recognize them.
1st as a working & taxpaying citizen of this County & City I viewed this meeting as a “done deal”, prior to any public hearings or vocalization from “public” tax payers. All of them (Public speakers) were courageous for stepping forward to express a very difficult opinion with the room filled with Police officers & Fire Fighters & EMS personnel. No one attending the meeting wanted to see our Public Safety denied a rightfully earned and greatly needed services negatively affected by this taxation decision. Especially if the economy continues in the direction it is presently travelling & the potential for an increase of crime, they are the last public service we want to assault/downsize.
2nd The behavior of a council member was more appropriate for the “Jerry Springer” show than an elected official representing the citizens of this County. Tax payers are angry, frustrated & not trusting of the officials appointed to look after them, their cities & welfare. They are going to be passionate; it is an anticipated behavior-expected behavior at a time when Government is threatening to take away everything they have & then some. Most of these people are unemployed with families or elderly. Deal with it Council man and do not increase taxes or don’t run for office.
3rd It was my personal observation the taxpaying citizens are being held hostage and threatened with their personal safety by intimidation through the actuations the Police Force, Fire Fighters & Emergency Medical Services would be targeted by pay cuts & loss of personnel if this “tax” did not pass. We as tax payers are tired of this type of hype & extortion.
At a time when we are not sure what is going to be hitting this Nation from Congress & the WH, I find it unthinkable that this proposal for increased taxes has even been on the table; foremost that there has been any salary increases for the Council members & City Officials, there should be pay “decreases or a pay freeze”. With the countless foreclosures in this town & job losses & a population of farmers & retirees living in this area who may have lost their benefits & retirements due to radical Government waste & spending, & local financial mishandling of funds. Do you not have a conscious?
Bottom line: The only Time I see the faces of the City Council members is when they are running for those positions…I may not see them then, just their names. On the other hand I see the police officers, Fire fighters & EMS personnel 24/7. I even see them doing things for this community on a voluntary bases “WITHOUT PAY” for the elderly, children & homeless…all hours of the night & day…just like our soldiers, and yes some of them are even in the military.
My point: Yes, if it is deemed necessary to continue to serve the citizens in this County keeping them safe then the 0.25 tax increase for public safety is something every citizen is willing to accept. That being said any other “taxation” is unconscionable, shockingly unfair and unjust, pure greed and unnecessary until after the dust settles in Washington and there has been some economical relief.
John you said: I feel your definition is a little skewed equality is equality across the board — start to finish.
So if the government is going to keep us equal from start to finish then why should I try? Why not just do nothing or whatever I want if the government is going to keep me equal?
In response to an earlier comment by John, house bill 1001 was introduced jointly by a democrat and a republican, the final vote in the house was 82-17 in favor hardly gop only, 34-17 in the senate also not just a gop only vote. Reps Austin and Reske voted for this bill,I think the bill is forcing local government to look closely at waste and there is plenty of it, so I guess if you are going to point fingers and think it was a bad idea then you should point at your local reps which are both deocrats
I have been to most all of the public hearings and meetings over the last year or so involving tax increases, sewer and trash increases utility increases including Elwoods meetings I dont recall very many citizens if any that were not public employees that were in favor of any of the increases. I hope they will remember that when election day comes and vote for the fiscally responsible candidate
In an earlier post I stated 34-17 vote on house bill 1001 senate vote that was a typo 34-14 is the correct vote in the senate with Tim Lanane voting in favor
They had to have a unanimous vote to allow a vote on the coit tax increase,and they got it, if just one council member would have voted no to allow the vote, the resolution would have died, and it looks as though the deadline for the end of the month would have passed before they could of had another meeting. The tax increase could still have been beaten even with 4 democrats voting for it. I am disappointed.