Mayor Bennett says next year's budget will be the 8th straight balanced budget with increases for capital equipment and staff raises, and prisoners should be occupying the new jail in October after supply delays.
On this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett addresses these issues and more on a Zoom interview. 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.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
Hren: Quick follow-up from last month - city budget for next year had a first look by city council and public comment?
Bennett: It's pretty far along now that they can vote on it in the next meeting at that first reading or be the second meeting, whichever. The meeting went really well last night, our budgets up a little bit. We're giving 4% raises, we got some capital things we want to do. We've got new revenue that's coming in to cover most of that.
We're using a little bit of reserves. We have a balanced budget. Again, that's eight straight years of having a balanced budget for the city. So revenues will exceed expenses. Costs go up, fuel costs, we had to build that in, our healthcare costs are going up, we had to build that in. So I feel really good after the meeting, it was a lot of positive feedback, everybody felt good about what we'd presented.
Hren: Are you seeing city staff workers leave? Is it hard to keep city employees here?
Bennett: No, not too bad. I think it's happening more than it's ever happened. Private sectors are beginning to pay more money. And now it's like, okay, I need to make this move. We just haven't seen a lot of that yet. But I think it's coming. So we need to stay ahead of that as much as we can.
I know 4% raises aren't going to cover the cost of inflation. There's no doubt about that. But that's a pretty good raise for what we've been able to do in the past. And so we're trying to do all the things we can and keep those benefits in place and build on them if we can. We want to keep our employees. I mean, they're key to us to be able to do what we do every day.
Hren: What are some of those capital improvement and new revenue lines?
Bennett: The new revenue is really a little bit of an assessed value increase. We're going to see some property tax revenue, we're definitely seeing an increase in local option income tax, people are working or making more money.
On the capital side, it's really vehicles, some things that we put off for a while, new radios for the police and fire departments is a big expense for us. Then some parks related projects, our Herz-Rose Park project, our Rea Park project, we're wrapping up our Brittlebank project, we want to rehabilitate the pool at Deming so next year, we'll do the design and get everything in order to do that in 2024.
Also we get the big overpass we're doing up at 13th and Eighth Avenue, our match money starts to hit next year. So that's big dollars. So we keep projects moving, prepare ourselves for funding opportunities or grants so that we're ready to go if something comes up and we can't pay to build it, then we're ready to put it out there and say, Okay, this grant fits. We got to be prepared. There's a lot of money out there.
Hren: Inmates aren't in the new Vigo County jail yet - there's a bit of delay. They were supposed to be there in July. Do you have more info?
Bennett: I talked to the sheriff last week, again, they're waiting on some parts - something for the fire alarm system, heating, cooling, it's all related to supply chain issues. And they can't put the prisoners in there until they can control the heat and cooling and the fire alarm systems are all working properly. They're saying any day now that'll come and the company will install them and then I'm gonna guess at this point, it's probably October moving prisoners and it's kind of the last I heard.
Hren: The jail was one part of justice reform, what part does the city see itself or obligated into reforming the criminal justice system?
Bennett: We don't play a big role in that - it's more just participating and being part of the collaboration, because we don't have funding to do that, the county gets that funding. But we've all had numerous conversations about how do we deal with people that are in jail while they're there to help provide some services to them that they're not getting, so it's both while they're incarcerated, and then when they come out? And so it's going to be a multifaceted approach. And it's a big monster to take on.
And we need to do more. There's no question about that. And so I don't think the final plans have all not been decided. But there's multiple groups here working on how do we do a better job with those people that are in our jail, and to keep them out of the jail. That's the end game.
Hren: I've noticed you're doing a lot more Facebook the last few months or so. You've talked about having a bigger presence online years ago and we're now seeing it. Is this part of a public outreach plan?
Bennett: I want people to know what's going on in the community so I'm not putting a lot of heavy stuff on there. Not a lot of city business on there. I really want people to know that there is a lot of stuff going on here, there's a lot of people making investments. I'm attending a lot of events that are good for the entire community. So really trying to help all these organizations promote what they done.
Next year, we're going to start filtering in more of operational kinds of things. And it's been difficult because I haven't had all the staffing in place, but we wanted to kind of begin to build that out. I get a lot of positive feedback, you get a few people are saying things, you know, it's just interesting what social media does and how people react to it. But I would say it's been 98% is positive.
Hren: Do you have someone overlooking it?
Bennett: We are interviewing for that position right now and hope to have them hired soon. So we're doing that with internal staff. So far, that's been my biggest problem. But we are currently doing those interviews, and I hope to bring somebody on in the next few weeks, and then we'll really be able to ramp it up.
