While the City budget does not contain tax increases, the Mayor has asked the Council to consider a drastic measure in dealing with the large public pension shortfall being faced. The City faces over $78 million in expenditures to fund pension plans in 2005. The largest portion, nearly $36 million, is for retired Indianapolis firefighters.

The pension shortfall issue stems from firefighters who retired before 1977. Their pensions are funded from the City’s operating budget. The mayor has asked the Council to consider issuing $100 million in anticipation bonds to establish a Pension Stabilization Fund, and moving the money that would have been spent for the pensions to fund operations.

According to Deputy Mayor Michael O’Connor, these 15-year anticipation bonds are obligated to future revenue the city will receive. This approach is tied to the Indianapolis Works proposal the Mayor presented last Monday (Dispatch, “Unifying Unigov,” Aug. 4-11). The Mayor hopes by consolidating fire services, the costs for fire protection will go down, and with a broader tax base, the City will have the means to fund future operations, including pension obligations.

According to O’Connor, the City and Township fire departments already share resources such as tactical response units and dive teams, therefore these obligations should be shared. He said, “We are all in this together. If the City fails, the townships fail. If the surrounding townships fail, the City fails.”

Womacks presented a budget that reduced spending by $21 million from 2004, but did not take into account $51 million that was borrowed from the state for juvenile detention through the end of 2003. She proposed that funding be cut for a number of programs including the Marion County Fair Board, the Cooperative Extension Agency, and Noble of Indiana.

Womacks has also proposed the privatization of Jail One, located at 40 South Alabama Street. Though Womacks indicated there were no specific companies in mind to manage the jail, she did say that Sheriff Frank Anderson told her he would be willing to consider anything that saved taxpayer money.

The Council will hold a public hearing on the budget proposals at a meeting scheduled for Aug. 23.