Q. Just what can the Indianapolis city administration do with Indy tax payers’ dollars?
A. It can give $155,000 of pay raises to its inner circle.
Move to ACT has consistently observed that the city is not lacking the money to upgrade Animal Care and Control – or any other city division that is operating on an anemic budget – but rather, it is the allocation of those dollars that is the issue and it defines the character of city leadership. When the administration decides to give 31% pay raises to chosen staff when no money is allocated for food for the city’s animals, animals are housed in an antiquated and “sick” building with no negative air flow to manage airborne pathogens, and the division is consistently understaffed, can one be surprised by the response of city county councilor Angela Mansfield, “I think it’s absolutely obscene.”
A hat-tip to Gary Welsh of Advance Indiana for first bringing this onto the public radar.
July 30
Ballard’s Top Staffers Received Up To 31% Pay Raises
July 31
Public Safety Cuts Loom As City’s Budget Problems Worsen
July 31
Double-Digit Pay Raises For Ballard’s Staff Now Drawing Media Scrutiny
July 31
Dems grumbling over big raises for Ballard’s staff
July 31
Mayor Greg Ballard’s staff raises draw fire from Democrats
“I think it’s absolutely obscene,” said Councilwoman Angela Mansfield, a Democrat who chairs the Administration and Finance Committee. “I keep coming to the word obscene over and over again. When you’ve got situations like (shortfalls in) Animal Care and Control, which has been underfunded again and again ….. to give somebody a raise from $98,000 to $120,000, it’s just obscene.”
July 31
Headline: Mayor Slashes Public Safety Budget; Police to buy Tricycles
August 1, 2012
Mayor Staffers Get $155K More Pay
“You do what you can with the resources given.” Mayor Greg Ballard