From the Indianapolis Business Journal:
Unlike his predecessors, Center Township Trustee Eugene Akers has no interest in hoarding cash.
The township ended 2012 with $6.7 million, the lowest bank balance in recent history, but the money won’t be going back into taxpayers’ wallets.
“Saving money is not one of my business deals,” Akers said. “I am here to help the indigent."
Yet the biggest checks Akers has written didn’t go to people in need of food, shelter or other emergency services, which is the township’s main mission. Akers, a Democrat elected in 2010, has launched a job-training program, acquired real estate, and made major improvements to the Julia M. Carson Government Center on Fall Creek Parkway.
The trustee’s activities show how little has changed in the world of township government, while cities and towns struggle to balance their budgets under property-tax caps. Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard and City-County Council leaders are trying to cut an additional $30 million from the 2013 budget, in anticipation of another revenue shortfall next year.
“This is sad because the city is up against budget problems,” said state Rep. Ed DeLaney, a Democrat who has pushed for eliminating township government. “And yet this goes on underneath.”
Akers inherited a cash balance of $8.5 million, the result of years of accumulating surpluses that began under Julia Carson, the late Democratic congresswoman who was Center Township trustee from 1990 to 1996. A friend and political ally of Carson’s, Akers, 67, served as Center Township assessor before running for trustee.
He said he found the township had a reputation for turning people away. He tried to reverse that, telling his staff, “We’re here to help people. You don’t send people away unless they’re just really, really beyond reach.”
Township spending on direct aid, or poor relief, has fluctuated from $2.6 million when Carl Drummer held the job in 2008 to $1.15 million under his successor, William Douglas, in 2010.
Under Akers, the township spent $1.7 million each of the past two years. Poor relief accounted for about 20 percent of the $8.57 million taxpayer-supported budget in 2012.
The biggest chunk of that budget, $3.7 million, went to personnel costs for the township’s 74-person staff.
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For now, though, the burden on taxpayers is growing. Center Township’s property-tax levy has risen from $2.7 million in 2009 to more than $3 million this year.
The township also collects a share of local income tax, $1.9 million last year.
The township’s 2012 cash balance, $6.7 million, represented more than 50 percent of the budget, or about five times the amount typically recommended for reserve funds, but it hasn’t voluntarily reduced the tax levy.
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See the full article here:
http://www.ibj.com/as-city-budget-tightens-center-township-trustee-has-money-to-burn/PARAMS/article/40596
