Hamilton explains why now is the time to raise the local income tax rate, the communication process between the mayor and council, and your questions on fiscal transparency, and the lawsuit on annexation waivers.
In this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton addresses these issues and more during an interview Tuesday at City Hall. Listen to the full conversation with Indiana Newsdesk anchor Joe Hren by clicking on the play button above, or read some of the questions and answers below. A portion of this segment airs 6:45 and 8:45 a.m. Wednesday on WFIU. Here are some highlights.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
Hren: We had a whole hour show on the proposed tax increase on Noon Edition Friday. I thought it was a great discussion with a lot of different people. I want to carry that discussion over here. We've calculated a 64% increase of the local income tax adding $18 million in new revenue.
City Council heard the proposal. They could vote on it on Wednesday. I know some people would say it's never a good time to raise taxes. But this time, it's post pandemic, there's inflation, MCCSC might be proposing a referendum, annexation might be taking effect. Why now?
Hamilton: I have talked about the importance of new revenue for Bloomington for a couple years. But the fact is, we really do need new revenue. First, we haven't raised the local income tax in Bloomington for general purposes for more than 30 years. And in that time, the city has grown a great deal, population and scope and activities and we face some of the same price pressures that everybody else does.
But also it's kind of important to recognize Bloomington is doing really well in a lot of ways. If you look at our jobs and unemployment, we have a really extraordinary growth of jobs. We have a growth of wages locally, we have some of the most spectacular public parks that we've got a gold medal winning park system. We're the only city in Indiana that has a CALEA accredited Police Department, and a top rated Fire Department.
We have to be sure they keep going well because a lot of people over the years have invested in this city and made good choices. We've had over $3 billion of private investment in the last few years. So the revenue will let us keep that momentum going, but also help us address some of the big challenges right in front of us.
Two of them are climate change, making sure we're adapting, we're mitigating, we're investing in efficiencies and improvements that deal with climate change. And then second, helping make sure the city really is accessible and works for everybody. That's affordable housing. That's investing in infrastructure that helps be accessible to people. I know sometimes people say now's not the right time. But I like the question, why would we not do this to make the future brighter for everybody here?
Hren: The last meeting didn't have overwhelming support. So what do you think will happen Wednesday?
Hamilton: I think of the nine city council members, I really think every one of them believes new revenue is important and necessary. Now each of them has a little different take probably on what they would do with exactly how much revenue and that's how democracy works. So my job has been to try to propose what I think is a very reasonable, responsible, affordable tax increase that will support so many good services. Their job is to come together, compromise, negotiate.
The council technically votes on a rate change. Actually the local income tax council, which is bigger than just city council, but they vote on a rate change, they can reduce the rate the resolution has proposed of 0.855. And do that just in an amendment. If they're going to raise it, we'd have to start the process over again, with public notice and such. So I don't expect them to raise beyond that. And they may adjust it, tweak it.
Hren: We have an email from William about a consultant's report devoted to improving communication between the mayor and common council. He wants to know why there was has been no effort made to implement the recommendations in the Novak report. Are you familiar with that?
Hamilton: We've hired Novak, which is a very qualified, excellent consulting group to help us really evaluate each department, step by step each city department. And we've had 15 or so of those reports over the last three years, I think. And they all get made public. And there was one that looked at City Council and Administration. One of the main things it looked at was boarding commission structure and how that works and how we can improve it.
It is a public report, we are implementing it now. We don't implement everything they recommend. We don't agree with all those parts. And I haven't read that report for a little bit. I think it did encourage review of some of the board and commission appointments and structures, which we're working with council on, but happy to talk in more detail if they want to contact my office.
I think it recommended some regular meetings, which we're already doing with City Council in terms of scheduling and coordinating. And I meet with leadership of city council every other week, separate from scheduling. And that may have been in that report. It's been helpful to think about how do we manage our city operations.
Hren: He also mentions the H-T guest column from a former City Comptroller and an IU professor, and how the city isn't providing enough fiscal transparency.
Hamilton: I'll beg to differ. I think we are extraordinarily transparent. And I've actually been in touch with those authors. They didn't talk to us before the column but most of what they talked about in the column is publicly available. They talked about a comprehensive annual financial report, which the city used to do in 2009 and before and stopped well before I came into office. We are doing that - we're ready to do that, we're waiting for the state to complete an audit for 2020. We can't release it until the state's done.
You can watch virtually daily the expenditures and income of the city. All of our financial status and reports are online, many of which required by state government and then many of which are additional release of transparency.
And you can sometimes pull a number off of a website and say, oh, this says this is your cash balances, but this one says differently. It's complicated. There are a lot of different ways when you report so many things out there. It can be confusing, but we're happy again to work with anybody about the finances.
Hren: Annexation is now tied up in the courts. I'm curious as to why the lawsuit was named on the Monroe County Auditor, instead of the state, because at odds is that 2019 state law. I'm wondering if you could elaborate on that?
Hamilton: Because it's really focused on the waiver issue. The auditor followed the 2019 law and discounted a whole bunch of waivers that we believe should be counted. She is really the person that we have to sue. We're not saying she did anything wrong in particular, but just that complying with that 2019 law violates the Indiana constitution and the federal constitution and other so it's a lot of legal technicalities.
READ MORE: Pushing City Limits: Bloomington Annexation Coverage
Hren: John emails in, he calls it the landslide remonstrance period on annexation and wanted to know, if you recognize that you don't have the consent of the government as described in the declaration of independence as a prerequisite for powers of government. And therefore recognize that the people have spoken and end the annexation process.
Hamilton: I appreciate the question, you might expect I have a little different take on it. The reason annexation has proceeded the way it has in Bloomington and around the state is the state set up a process by which cities like ours would extend sewers, which is typically the first service that people want and need to be to be connected in near a city, urban development, denser development, they need sewers, and in Indiana law for many, many years, we have extended sewers to people in exchange for which they promise to join the city when it's time when we ask, we could have done that.
That prompted state government to step in and void those waivers. And that's what we think is unfair and illegal, in fact, because we did our part of the deal, which is extending sewers to thousands of people who now say I don't want to be part of the city and we say well, you've already agreed or the property owner before you agreed and it runs with the land.
I understand a lot of people would pick ala carte city services if they could and say hey, I'll pay for the bus or I'll pay for the transit or I'll pay for the sanitation or I'll pay for this but I don't want to pay for that. And that's just not the way cities work.
