By KEN ALEXANDER
Council Minutes
Thank you to the Hamilton County Reporter again. It is wonderful to participate in local news reporting, and as a reader of this article, I know that you share the same passion for our local community. I’m honored to be provided this opportunity to share my comments with regards to the County Council.
I trust everyone has had a wonderful summer. It is nice to have spent time with family and friends and even better to enjoy it without masks. August is budget season and your County Council deliberated over department budget requests, non-profit funding, and county project planning for two days. The goal of every Councilor is to keep the tax rate low and maintain or improve the quality services that our citizens and businesses demand.
The last 18 months have been hard on everyone, but it has not been without some positives. Difficult times require us to rethink things which can be a catalyst to growth. As I began to look over the notes from the budget hearings and the August Council meeting, I happened upon some information from the Health Department. I am awed by the county’s reaction to the coronavirus. The hard work and determination of so many have helped Hamilton County lead the state in our vaccination rate of 76 percent for eligible persons 12 and older. It is this effort that is going to help our businesses cope and stay open should the Delta variant continue to spread. No one wants to relive 2020, so thank you for your efforts to keep our numbers lower than any other county in the Indianapolis metro area.
Budget hearings are two days of meetings that are the culmination of months of work by our county departments. It would be a mistake to not state how thorough and supportive the Auditor, her staff and the rest of the departments have been during our deliberations. The hearings went very smoothly, but I’ve had several requests to explain the process.
The budget hearings are in effect a work session with the various departments. It is advertised like any other public meeting but is not the actual public budget hearing, which will happen on Oct. 5 at our regularly scheduled meeting. At that meeting, the public is welcome to participate and provide comments. The adoption of the budget will happen after the public hearing concludes at a special meeting currently scheduled for Oct. 17.
The timing of these various meetings also coincides with revenue information provided by the state and overseen by the Department of Local Government Finance (DLGF). I would recommend that all taxpayers become knowledgeable of the process and understand how your taxes are divided up and spent by your various governmental units.
The overwhelming issue that was raised by the different departments was the need for a qualified workforce and succession planning. Time and again, we reviewed requests for new people but were also told about how hard it was in recruiting people to come work for the county. These are two issues that we are working with various leaders around the county, but it is also the main reason that I championed the need for a Hamilton County career center and sought out a county audit. The career center will not fill every job but with information collected from our economic development experts at Invest Hamilton County, we can focus training in the areas of greatest need.
How will the audit help this? Our audit has a focus on creating efficiencies and possibly better ways to provide services so that the need for more people can be automated or processed differently. We have no doubt that our departments run very lean and efficiently, but we want to give the department leaders the opportunity to challenge their own thoughts and ideas.
Another topic of conversation at budget hearings was about the opportunities provided to the county through grants. As we stretch and maximize every dollar, we also must continuously look for new revenue to offset the use of county tax dollars. Every department has grant opportunities, but few have the time or resources available to manage either the grant writing process or the paperwork that follows.
One department head stated that 20 to 40 percent of her time weekly was spent doing paperwork for a single grant. Through much debate we empathized with her position but directed her to continue to pursue the grant and we promised to seek support to help her with the paperwork. This is but one department and there are many that could use these services.
We do not want to advocate for a single entity in each department but will turn to the audit to determine how best to support grant writing and administration. We do not want to overwhelm the audit team but it is an opportunity to relieve financial burdens, possibly in a way that is highly efficient or even outsourced.
The budget hearings concluded with some news of an estimated Local Income Tax (LIT) distribution that was far below anticipated levels. In previous articles in the Reporter, this was shared, but I want to alleviate concerns about the impact of this change in our anticipated revenues.
The amount of LIT is distributed by the state and generally follows similar changes of other Marion County doughnut counties. This year was very different, and we will seek to understand why. Our estimates already accounted for revenues based on only 10 months because of the state income tax delays in 2020. Our numbers showed a 3.6 percent drop in LIT from the previous year, while similarly-sized counties like Hancock, Hendricks, Boone, Johnson all experienced modest gains or decreases. Even Marion County had less of a drop than we did, and our county opened back up before all of them. We believe that this might be an error and will seek further information. This change can be absorbed without increasing our tax rate, dipping into our Rainy Day Fund, or changing our operational budgets.
As an analogy, our household can still pay all our bills, pay the kids for mowing the lawn, do the bathroom renovation we had budgeted for, but we are not going to put as much into savings as we had hoped. It is Hamilton County’s fiscal discipline and strong financial position that allows for this to be achieved.
The last item for this article is the only item of major consequence discussed at County Council. I requested several months ago an ordinance that requires that any department notify the Council of any grant that requires financial commitments from the county in the form of a match. As a county, we have been disciplined in managing cash flow, but unforeseen changes can wreck a plan. The goal of the ordinance is not to be the approver of the grants but to have knowledge of the application so that we can refine our financial plan to accommodate the projects in the grant.
Some of these commitments are years away while others can be the very next year. Offsetting budget costs is not a concern and is strongly encouraged for our departments. Unbudgeted projects are an issue when they are very large.
In the 2022 budget, the Sheriff is seeking body cameras for its staff, and we have accounted for that in their budget. He also plans to seek grant dollars that might minimize that expenditure.
After much deliberation, we concluded the introduction of that ordinance and will refine language based on comments shared.
This is a good ordinance that will allow us to continually refine budget plans to reflect current conditions. It is no different than how you manage your household budget and businesses.
My goal with these monthly columns is to inform you of county-level issues, and to invite you into the conversation. It is easy to say we have all the answers, but I see myself as a gatherer of facts elected to promote business principles in government. I welcome your questions at ken.alexander@hamiltoncounty.in.gov.
Ken Alexander is serving in his first term on the Hamilton County Council, representing District 4, which includes Adams and Washington townships, and part of Clay Township.