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Dear Editor:
Five years ago, the bond rating firm Standard & Poor’s warned, “In our view, [Carmel runs] the risk of high leverage and a heavy dependence on sometimes more-volatile tax increment revenues, we feel the city’s crowded budget and high fixed costs leave it vulnerable to unanticipated economic or operating swings.”
It’s 2022 and the unanticipated has arrived. Big time.
Data the city provides the state by statute indicates that, over the last decade, central planners have spent $70 million more per year than they have taken in.
Revenues of $3.37 billion compared to expenditures of $3.44 billion are largely due to the $115 million shortfall in revenues reported by the redevelopment group in just the last four years (when the State of Indiana ordered Carmel to break out redevelopment finances from city operations).
Far from heeding good advice, city progressives have doubled down on debt and are trying fruitlessly to rename large chunks of it “developer-backed bonds,” as if renaming debt pays it off.
The mayor remains mute as to his plan to reverse course even as interest rates and government-induced inflation climb.
Bill Shaffer
Carmel