Time for a change

Education spending accounts for half of the state’s annual budget. Providing the highest quality education possible to our children is a very important responsibility. Having quality teachers in the classroom is a vital part of this equation. In order to appropriately provide for both requires the state legislature to act prudently. They must live up to the commitments they have made to our children and to our teachers. This requires not only fiscal responsibility but vision in order to ensure the tax revenues will be able to cover the programs so important to our communities. I would represent that the current administration, the legislature and our current state representative have failed miserably in living up to their responsibilities to our children, our teachers and ultimately to us, the taxpayers.

A couple of years ago, during an election cycle, the legislature delayed the January payment due to local school corporations. The payment would come in December. This was an accounting trick to delay the bad news until after the election and to push the payment until the next fiscal year. This forced local school districts, including the Jay School Corp., to borrow money in order to meet payroll. School boards across the state have to wonder every month whether or not their payments from the state will materialize. Who amongst us could tell the bank that we are not going to pay the mortgage this month but will make it up later — maybe?

Some other legislative sleight-of-hand has further undermined our future financial security. Two cycles ago, in the name of property tax relief, the state decided that we should take an additional 20 percent that used to come directly from the courthouse to our school treasurer and send it to the state. They would then give it back ... maybe. Now approximately 60 percent of funding from property tax goes to Indianapolis first before it comes back to our local schools. Effectively, this tactic serves as taking more local control away in favor of more centralized control of educational funding.

If these actions weren’t bad enough, the worst violation of public trust came last year when, once again, our state budget was in trouble. In order to balance the budget, this administration suggested we rob not only the teacher’s pension fund but also the funds the state had received from the tobacco companies that was earmarked for education and prevention programs. Over $380 million was taken from the teacher’s retirement fund. Additionally, lottery proceeds of over $30 million a year are not being added to the fund as promised. Over $8 billion of future payments to our teachers have not been saved for.

Our current representative voted for these actions. Further, he voted to cut the transportation funding to $0. Jay County is the seventh-largest county in Indiana. We require transportation funds in order to get our students to school. He also voted against an initiative that would commit the legislature to spend only 99 percent of project annual revenues. When I asked him about this in a town meeting, he told us that there is no way to spend less. I would guess his suggestion would be to continue to raise taxes.

We need to increase our tax revenues in Indiana. The solution is not to squeeze blood from a rotting turnip, it is to increase the number of jobs and investment. Our representative voted for Energize Indiana before he voted against it. He was one of only four representatives that voted for an amendment that would roll back much of what Energize Indiana promised. Most notably to me was the reintroduction of the inventory tax. In the town meeting he made clear that his tactic was to tax what we already have more heavily to pay for entitlements promised to special interest groups to which he is accountable.

Rather than looking to the future for more economic development that would provide new jobs and more investment, he is steadfast in putting more and more tax burden on what we currently have, more red tape to face for our current businesses. This tactic will certainly make Indiana a less attractive place for investment. This will lead to shrinking tax rolls and more and more burden on us and our children.

Our leadership in Indianapolis has failed us. We were unprepared for the economic transition we were certain to face. Our rainy day funds are gone, we have stolen money from our teacher’s retirement fund, our schools have been forced to borrow to meet payroll obligations and more and more local control continues to shift to Indianapolis.

Our current representative has done nothing to address our future challenges or to commit to fiscal responsibility. We need someone who understands our challenges, someone who has not been tainted by Indianapolis special interest groups, someone who believes that local control is a much better way to govern than centralized authority. We need a representative who will look to the future in order to formulate a plan to get us out of our current economic condition and to provide more jobs and investment. We need Bill Davis. Let’s send a message to those who would further burden us in Indianapolis; let’s send Bill Davis to the statehouse.

Bryan Alexander

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