“All mayors in all (Indiana) cities are facing these problems,” said Princeton Mayor Bob Hurst during Friday’s Mayors’ Roundtable held at the Old Cathedral Parish Center and hosted by the city. “The state is just demanding that we do more with less.”
“They dictate what we do, but (state officials) don’t tell us how to fund it,” said Vernon Mayor Dan Wright.
“All of us face a lot of the same challenges,” said Jasper Mayor Terry Seitz. “We’re having to work within new constraints, ones that came with the property tax caps.
Friday’s meeting was one of a series of such gatherings at which area mayors and other municipal officials can get together to share ideas, brainstorm and, well, commiserate.
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Friday the group discussed everything from the property tax caps passed by the General Assembly in 2008 to city services like trash pickup to the growing cost of health insurance for city employees — and in particular how to make do with less.
“A lot of our legislators just keep cutting our budgets,” said Hurst, the organization’s outgoing president. “A lot of those people have never been mayors before, so they don’t understand how difficult it is.”
Yochum said a hot topic amongst the mayors Friday was how to deal with trash. With fewer property tax dollars coming in, trash pickup has been one of the first things to be affected. Trash collection fees have gone up all over the state. Other communities have simply done away with trash pickup, and residents must hire a private company to do it.
Vincennes currently is looking to implement a new system, one to replace the current sticker system that is no longer generating enough revenue. Trash bags must be placed in a special trash tote that is picked up by an automated truck; therefore no one is consistently checking to be sure the bags have been stickered.
A city council committee is looking at possibly charging residents a monthly fee, one issued, perhaps, on their sewer bill, a method many other cities currently use.
With the help of what he's learned at the roundtables, Yochum said, Vincennes is getting closer to solving that problem.
http://suncommercial.com/articles/2012/11/17/news/local_news/doc50a857e1a56e2349420468.txt
