In this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Terre Haute Mayor Brandon Sakbun addresses this issue and more 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: I know you're working on next year's budget, I believe next is a public hearing coming up soon?
Sakbun: Yes, and then there's the City Council questions for the administration, and then they move to ratify it. And I think what's interesting to point out is, for a budget of our size, from last year to this year, a 1.45% increase, right? That budget went from about 127 million to 129 million. The reason why that increase is so low is all the great work that the different departments have been doing to make things as efficient as possible.
Remember, we've had another year of inflation, another year of rising challenges like cost to insurance, cost to asphalt, cost to concrete, and here we are still able to deliver quality services, really reducing some of our staffing, but also making ourselves more efficient.
It's been months of work, as we still are dealing with some of the long-term financial impacts to Senate Bill One and how we'll navigate with that.
Hren: Talking with Columbus Mayor Mary Ferdon last week, and they're hiring a grant administrator to help fund city services through foundations and corporate grants. Is that a strategy in Terre Haute?
Sakbun: 100% - one of the bigger foundation grants, the Lilly Community Foundation's YMCA renovation. We do have a Grants team. It comprises of one of our law enforcement officers, our city planner, and a member from our city parks department.
The Pacers Foundation was able to step in help us build a basketball court here in Terre Haute. So we are very experienced when it comes to utilizing public foundations, private foundations, and, of course, the private sector to build a thriving community. Our city planner, she's actually paid for her salary about 40 times this year already.
Hren: I wanted to mention an IndyStar article about Indiana's property tax reform, and it reminded me of something you said back in July. The article is about smaller towns facing extinction after losing state funding due to their proximity to Indianapolis. You said you drive through these small towns as you head to Indianapolis, and you talked about your heart hurting about unintended, careless policies, and now we're seeing some of that come to fruition.
Sakbun: It's the harsh reality, but I think where we go from here is what's really important, and that's the conversation with the legislators. Does it make sense to just shift taxing entities from property tax to income tax? Why are we not having a conversation about what needs to be consolidated. How can we make government at all levels more efficient while still delivering services?
At the end of the day, this bill is passed, but the actions that we take this next session and the following session, the actions that we take and the narrative that we deliver is, hey, look, we have made changes. We've tightened our belt, but we can't keep getting told we need to have skin in the game, because that equates to these are local taxes that they want us to add to be able to get more state support. That might work in the 317, Hamilton County suburban areas, but that's not going to work in some of our rural communities where Hoosiers are hurting.
Hren: The city sent a release about the efforts to address homelessness. What struck me was something Bloomington Mayor Kerry Thomson addressed a couple months ago, and that's other communities transporting people experiencing homelessness to the city. What is leading you to believe the same?
Sakbun: We've conducted an internal investigation. We have a list of 40 individuals who came from not just other Indiana cities. I want to make that point clear, a lot of these folks have come from other states, whether that's through the Greyhound bus system or through a different type of delivery mechanism.
I recognize that some of our smaller cities and towns do not have any services whatsoever, right? But what's important to understand is, you can have that compassion. We invest in shelters, we invest in warming centers and cooling centers and workforce development programs and housing programs, you name it.
But we also need to understand that while there's a very small group within the homeless population that is rejecting services, we cannot let that narrative outweigh the fact that 85 to 90% of these individuals did not choose to be homeless, so we've got to find a way to help them get their lives back on track.
Hren: Riverscape project has some new updates, including a street name change. Are there many addresses along the river that will affect people who live there or have a business?
Sakbun: There's a handful of businesses and some residential and so we'll have conversations with them if they're on board with that. Overall, we've heard mostly positive feedback. Some folks say, hey mayor, it should be Riverside Street instead of Riverside Drive, because it's in the city limits. And those are always fun discussions, because Riverside Street was already taken.
I think it's one of those things we can do to really promote the gateway into our community. When you move from west to east, you look at some of the improvements we made along the river, in our public spaces, in our parks, and hopefully moving towards some exciting announcements with the private sector community.
