Shaffer responds to Worrell’s letter

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Dear Editor:

The chairman of the Carmel City Council Finance Committee (CCCFC) scorned my 215-word letter to the editor (Feb. 2, 2002, Shaffer: Carmel’s debt service payments serve as warning for rest of county) but missed the mark:

1. The letter highlighted the growing debt service requirements and potential difficulty meeting them. CCCFC offered an opinion but no evidence to dispute that claim.
2. CCCFC labels a “misleading generalization” the citing of $86 million debt payment due by the end of the year. The number came from the city to the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance (IDLGF). CCCFC knows that, and they also know the $86 million will grow 23 percent next year to $105.9 million.
3. CCCFC claimed the city’s finances are solid and used property tax stability as proof, writing, “It has not been necessary to raise the city property tax rate in six years.” Six years ago, the rate was 0.7007 and this year, 0.7877, up 12.5 percent, according to the Hamilton County Treasurer.
4. CCCFC said water and sanitary sewer bonds are paid by “not a dime of tax money.” My letter never claimed they were. Those bonds will be repaid by increased water and sewer utility bills – a hidden tax.
5. “Historically low interest rates” claimed by CCCFC is a terminological inexactitude supported by no data. In fact, the three Proscenium bonds CCCFC endorsed totaled $16.9 million in principal and $19.3 million in interest, again according to data the city provided the IDLGF. That’s an effective interest rate of 54 percent, a bit above any historically low level.
6. “Inflation will make it easier not harder for Carmel to retire the debt,” CCCFC opined. What? Inflation is a hidden tax that hits hardest those on fixed incomes, the poor and the underemployed hardest.

The CCCFC chairman voted for virtually every dime of the city’s $1.5 billion debt. He sat on the Carmel Redevelopment Commission virtually from Day One. According to the finance committee’s investigation of the Hotel Carmichael cost overruns scandal, CCCFC knew of the overruns a year before they were disclosed to the public. The report states: “Council members Kevin Rider and Jeff Worrell CCCFC met with redevelopment officials Jan. 2, 2019 to discuss the updated $53.5 million estimate at length.” Overruns were disclosed in January 2020.

If anyone should understand the precarious nature of Carmel’s redevelopment experiment, the CCCFC chairman should.

Instead of attacking the messenger, the CCCFC chairman should be informing the public accurately and honestly.

Your readers deserve it.

Bill Shaffer

Carmel