Budget Hearings -- All Admin & Finance Committee Budgets -- Final Changes

We're down to the home stretch of the City-County 2010 budget process. Now each committee will meet one more time to entertain any changes to the budget submitted by Mayor Ballard and to vote the final offering out of Committee.

Up tonight - Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - 5:30 pm - room 260 -- Administration & Finance Committee

The budgets they considered are: Office of Internal Audit, Office of Finance & Management, City-County Council & Clerk, Office of the Mayor, Office of Corporation Counsel, Election Board, Voter Registration, County Recorder, County Surveyor, Information Services Agency/CIO's Office, County Assessor, Telecom & Video Services Agency, Building Authority, County Administrator, County Treasurer, County Commissioners, County Auditor, and the Bond Band and Debt Obligations.

Off the top of my head, the one item that stands out is the $290,000 proposed expenditure by the City-County Council & Clerk for redistricting. That is something that Gary Welsh, quoting Amos Brown's editorial (Amos is right) and citing the state statute that mandates redistricting is a 2012 function. The census will not be held until 2010 and then there is a lag for publishing the finer and finer details. It is the fine details that would be used to craft or gerrymander (we'll see which course is chosen) the districts. So, why they need this money in 2010 is not clear at all.

The Council is up for election in 2011, and should the Council change political hands, this money would essentially be flushed down the toilet, unless the current Republican majority is looking at crafting and not gerrymandering. Remember that in 2003, the Indiana Supreme Court disapproved the proposed gerrymandered districts and decided the current district boundaries. Note that was 3 years after the last census year.