From the Indianapolis Star:
Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard today said he is signing the 2013 budget recently passed by the Democratic-majority City-County Council -- but with three line-item vetoes.
The biggest change: Ballard, a Republican, will veto all $32 million in county income tax revenue that is budgeted for county agencies. That means that, under the amended budget, county agencies would have to share in cuts adding up to that amount. That potentially could affect the Sheriff's Department and other elected officials, all Democrats, but the council would be responsible early next year for making the final spending decisions, according to Ryan Vaughn, Ballard's chief of staff.
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Democrats have a 16-13 majority, making it unlikely they would be able to muster the 20 votes needed to override a veto by next Thursday -- the deadline to approve next year's budget.
That means talks over this year's budget may not be done.
Ballard's line-item veto decision was based on two main considerations, Vaughn said: Under law, he can only veto the entire nearly $1.1 billion budget outright or veto individual items. But he cannot rewrite items or change amounts in the budget.
The other consideration is that the city's calculations estimate the city will face a budget gap in 2014 of roughly $35 million. That makes the $32 million cut in county spending the most attractive option to set aside money in reserves to balance the 2014 budget. Those cuts -- if they happen -- would amount to 14 percent of the county general fund budget that covers daily operating costs for those agencies.
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Today, Ballard also intends to veto two other lines in next year's city/county budget:
>>About $652,000 in spending on contracts in the council office's budget. The move is aimed at nixing $100,000 budgeted by the council for an anticipated legal fight with Republicans over redistricting next year. Vaughn says if the council passed a new measure approving its contract spending early next year -- without the $100,000 for redistricting -- Ballard would sign it.
>>A section creating a fund for police and firefighter recruit costs. The council had created the fund -- as part of its plan to use part of a $15 million one-time tax on the Capital Improvement Board for recruit classes -- but hadn't budgeted any money in the fund.
Ballard's major disagreement with the council centered on its addition of the $15 million payment to the city in the separate budget of the CIB, which runs the city's sports and convention facilities. The council assessed a "payment in lieu of taxes" on the tax-exempt CIB.
CIB leaders are discussing ways to fight that move, but Ballard doesn't have direct veto power over the CIB budget. Vaughn said the council didn't send the CIB budget to Ballard; but if it had, he said, the mayor would have attempted to line-item veto the $15 million payment because it amounts to a property tax increase. The mayor's legal advisers believe the council's addition of the payment to the CIB budget violated state law, which they contend requires a longer process to assess such a payment on tax-exempt entities.
Instead, he said Ballard's veto message to the council will include an assurance that any attempt by the council to spend the $15 million next year -- if the CIB payment is successful -- would meet with a mayoral veto. The council had hoped to use some of the money to pay for police and fire recruit classes, which weren't included in either the budget proposed by the mayor or passed by the council.
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See the full article (including Democratic response to the Mayor's actions) here:
http://www.indystar.com/viewart/20121026/NEWS/121026009/Democrats-blast-Ballard-s-budget-decision-my-way-highway-politics
