Core Services

The primary duty of the County Council is to provide core services to the county -- the criminal justice system (sheriff, prosecutor, judges, courts, probation, corrections, juvenile justice, etc.), infrastructure (county roads and bridges), record-keeping (deeds and liens), and the tax-collecting and distribution infrastructure. The provision of these services depends on the budgeting and appropriations of the Council, which in turn depends on the stability and predictability of revenue. The recently-passed property tax restructuring law (House Enrolled Act 1001) changes some of the funding streams that county government depends upon in ways that are not yet entirely clear.

HEA1001 increases our dependence upon more volatile sales and income taxes, rather than the more stable property tax. HEA1001 also takes some responsibilities away from local property taxes, but also puts some new limitations in there. My first duty and priority on the County Council would be to ensure that county government is able to maintain these vital core services in this time of fiscal uncertainty. I support calls to freeze spending until budget hearings, after which the County will have a better understanding of the available revenue streams. Public safety and infrastructure has to be our priority.

A More Resource-Efficient County Government

As the funding of local government depends more and more on volatile sources of revenue such as property taxes, we will be forced to do more with less. As energy prices continue to rise and supplies dwindle, county government will be even more vulnerable. We need to adopt an agressive plan to cut consumption across all departments of county government (excepting those functions essential for public safety and emergency response). I support an efficiency plan that includes the following elements:

1. An energy audit of county government that identifies realistic targets for savings over the next five years.
2. Quarterly energy reduction targets that take into account both fuel use and cost.
3. Requiring county departments to provide easy-to-read public scorecards on their progress in meeting targets
4. Enforcing targets through the county's budget process.
5. Providing departments with maximum flexibility to meet targets, through smart construction, more efficient vehicles, alternate work arrangements, etc.

The scorecard concept can also be applied to targeting, achieving, and reporting on other efficiencies in local government.

You can read my press release on energy efficiency here.

Diverse Economy of Locally-Owned Small Businesses

We need to aggressively promote a diverse economy of small, locally-owned businesses and businesses that pay living wages and provide their employees benefits. County Council really has three tools in the toolbox with which they can support economic development. From most to least effective, they are:

Support High Quality of Life

The Council can support the high quality of life in this area that makes it such a good place to do business in the first place. This means making decisions that support a clean and attractive environment, walkable and bikeable communities, cultural and recreational amenities, rural beauty and greenspace, an educated workforce, and an efficient and transparent government. The Bloomington area was recently ranked #3 by Forbes Magazine among 179 small metropolitan areas across the country on a list of best small places for business and careers, largely because of the high quality of life. So let’s make sure we play to our strengths.

Partnerships

Second, the Council can support and partner with other organizations that provide tools and support to small businesses. For example, there is the Small Business Development Center (SBDC), which runs several programs that can provide entrepreneurs with consulting, incubator support, even microcredit. We can make sure that organizations like the SBDC have resources to help startups get off the ground and grow to the next level.

Tax Abatements

The third tool is to provide tax abatements as incentives. This is the least effective of the three. There have been many studies done on the effectiveness of tax abatements, and in most cases, abatements aren’t deal-makers – at best, they are tie-breakers, when a company has to chose between two equally-attractive locations in which to investt. By and large, I don’t like to give tax abatements – basically, it means taking money out of the pockets of homeowners and renters and giving to businesses. But if we are going to need to continue to grant tax abatements to remain competitive, we need to make sure that they are carefully targeted at and limited to companies that are going to make investments that result in higher wages and benefits for employees (i.e., a living wage), not just large quantities of low-paying jobs.

You can read my press release on economic development here.

County Stormwater Utility

A county stormwater utility will help to control flooding, protect the county's bodies of water, and help fund the inevitable costs of growth more fairly. Development – that is, replacing of natural vegetation with buildings, concrete, and other impervious surfaces – causes pollution of our lakes and streams, and also increases the incidence of flooding. We need a system that ensures that the County has the resources to manage the problem – it is the price we have to pay for growth, much of which has already occurred. Federal and state regulations (the Clean Water Act and so-called "Rule 13" from the state) require that Monroe County regulate the drainage of stormwater in order to prevent pollutants from entering the county's waterways. Rule 13 is basically an unfunded mandate, so unless we have a utility, the taxpayers foot the bill through property taxes. This is a hidden subsidy of sprawl that needs to end.

Right now the City of Bloomington and Town of Ellettsville have stormwater utilities, but the county doesn't. The resources for critical stormwater mitigation measures are grossly insufficient. A stormwater utility would establish a dedicated line of funding for small-scale stormwater and flood-control measures and ensure that overdevelopment isn't subsidized by the taxpayers. The utility could include incentives for more efficient and innovative construction that generates less stormwater runoff and pollution. Smart building techniques, like permeable pavement and rain gardens can go a long way to mitigating stormwater treatment issues. Businesses and homeowners should be rewarded for creating and maintaining these features.

A stormwater utility would help both the environment and taxpayers. We would have cleaner lakes and streams, reduced flooding, and fairer taxes.

You can read my press release on the creation of a county stormwater utility here.

Comprehensive Solutions to the Criminal Justice Problems

The most important point is that we need to look at the criminal justice system in a comprehensive manner – that the system doesn’t just mean a jail. The County Council of course doesn’t have any control over who goes to jail – but it responsible for appropriating the resources to operate a jail in a lawful and humane manner. Even the sheriff himself has referred to current conditions as "inhumane." The Council has a basic responsibility to the citizenry to ensure that this problem is remediated.

The Council also, though, has the responsibility to invest in programs that help keep people out of trouble to begin with, and if they do get into trouble, help them become law-abiding, tax-paying citizens again. That is why I support programs that emphasize prevention - -like the truancy court that the Prosecutor and Judge Galvin are working on. The earlier we intervene, the less likely we are to have these children drop out of school, and go on to commit more frequent and worse crimes.

We also have to make sure that that we provide some mechanism to help inmates transition from being on the inside to being able to function in society. Otherwise they are just going to wind up right back in jail. Initiatives like New Leaf/New Life, Amethyst House, and Oxford House are incredibly important in helping inmates get their lives back on track and keeping everyone else safe.

The County is currently talking about creating a new justice facility that combine the jail with additional community corrections and programming space, as well as a juvenile treatment facility. I don’t know if we can afford it yet – the County Commissioners just contracted for a financial study that will give us some more information. I do know that we can’t afford to do nothing, and we can’t afford to just put a band-aid on the system. As things are now, we run the risk of losing a major lawsuit, or even having a Federal judge tell us to build a new and bigger jail right away, or let some of the inmates go. That is a risk that I cannot allow the county to accept.

I also believe that it is wrong to ship our troubled youth out of County. It costs too much, and is destabilizing to families, some of whom are trying desperately to hold themselves together.

We do have the legal responsibility to provide a jail -- but we should be looking beyond mere "cages". We must look at our criminal justice system comprehensively and make sure that we come up with something that our citizens can proud of and that our community can afford.