Possible cost of reorganized city reported

The Finance Committee presented its report on the potential expenditures of a reorganized Greenwood in 2011, the first full year of operation of the new community, should voters approve.  The revenue side of the balance sheet will be presented at a later meeting, so this information is not sufficient to estimate any change in property taxes for the residents. Tom Latondress reported the findings as part of the Finance Committee.

Financial budgets and real expenditures in Greenwood in 2006, 2007 and 2008 formed the basis of their analysis. They also incorporated information received from Jay Marks, White River Township Trustee.

It should also be noted that they are only dealing with those areas that may change with the formation of the new committee. If a tax rate will not change due to the reorganization, such as the library tax rate, it was not considered in the analysis.

The primary goal of the committee was to provide a model that would represent a fully funded city in 2011 and to have self-sustaining funds, for example the parks and recreation fund. They also want to avoid moving operating funds into the capital budgets and to provide suggestions for “fair, equitable and transparent” salaries.

Mr. Latondress leads with the bottom-line; the old Greenwood 2010 budget is just over $15 million, when the new Greenwood forms in 2011 the amount increase to $23 million and change, a net difference of about $8 million or an increase of 53%. It should be made clear that this is not a proposed budget rather it is an estimate of what it might cost should the recommendations of the various subcommittees be accepted and the cost estimates prove accurate. We have requested a copy of the detailed analysis for posting. We will make it available as soon as it arrives.

While there is some discussion of Public-Private Partnerships (P3), Latondress says since they are not common in Indiana and there doesn’t seem to a significant number of companies competing for the business, the committee found exploring P3 alternatives was beyond their charge and capacity. Chair Pat Sherman notes officials “will be meeting with the Reason Foundation to further explore P3.” The Reason Foundation is a Washington think-tank on the leading edge of finding alternative and less expensive ways of providing government services.

The fire departments are not part of the analysis. However the fire departments of White River Township and Greenwood are currently also discussing the merger of the two departments.

The report projects both the increase in salaries of current employees, the salaries of additional employees and the cost of the additional workload for the expanded city. The estimates for the expansion of the expenses for the various offices were a best-effort-estimate of the members of the committee; the actual cost may be greater or smaller.

Chair Pat Sherman notes that these positions are being recommended by the committee, but before they could be added, they would have to go through the normal approval process. The committee cannot require the new employees be hired but rather are ensuring the new city “has the potential to have the employees.” They would rather error on the high-side than the low-side. They don’t want to come back to the residents in 2012, for example, with a significant tax increase for unanticipated expenses. The figures presented are the maximum they would expect.

Tonight they did not look at the revenue side, only the expense side. The work will be reviewed by the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance.

No related posts.