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The three-member Lake County Board of Commissioners was unwilling Wednesday to authorize $20 million in potential loans until the county government's fiscal body, the seven-member County Council, agreed it was a good idea and asked them to do it.
But council members balked at taking such a vote at their budget workshop meeting Tuesday. Instead they named a three-member committee — which meets behind closed doors this morning — to figure out what to do.
Councilman Rick Niemeyer, R-Lowell, told commissioners Wednesday, "We are $4 million short just to stay where we are at this year's spending and we face another $16 million in other new spending. We may go through four or five options."
However, Dante Rondelli, the council finance director, said officials either have to cut the budget by an unacceptable amount, borrow or find new revenue — a veiled reference to a county income tax.
Commissioners hired a consultant to look into borrowing, but Commissioner Roosevelt Allen, D-Gary, cautioned, "I don't want the public to get the opinion I want to do a lot of borrowing for government operations. We have to pay it back with interest."
Allen said the county has little choice but to pass at least a 1 percent tax on the personal income of county residents and workers to unfreeze the county's property tax levy. The Legislature forbids the county's overall taxes to rise higher than the amount collected in 2007 to punish the county for not adopting an income tax.
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