3/8/2006
Media Contact:
Steve Campbell, [317] 327-3622 |
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Mayor urges legislative conference committee to compromise on Indy Works
INDIANAPOLIS - Mayor Bart Peterson today urged leaders of the Indiana General Assembly to use a legislative conference committee today to allow Indianapolis to merge fire departments, and actually improve fire services and save taxpayer dollars.
The Indiana House of Representatives last week passed Senate Bill 1, which purports to allow a fire department merger in Marion County. In actuality, it creates a department run by a 12-member committee for four years, with no direct accountability for operating the department and no guarantee of improving fire service and cost savings.
Last week, the House voted along party lines to kill an amendment designed to fix those defects. The House then voted to pass SB 1, meaning that true savings and efficiencies would not be possible.
The bill now moves to a conference committee today at 10 a.m., where state lawmakers have another chance to fix the bill, the Mayor said.
"The plan as it stands now allows the very people who most vehemently oppose the merger to plan and run the new department for four and a half years," he said. "This is a layer of bureaucracy that virtually assures that we would not see the tax savings Indianapolis Works would provide."
About the Mayor’s compromise. Peterson’s original Indianapolis Works plan called for merging ten fire departments in Marion County, eliminating all but two township trustees and boards for delivering poor relief; and merging nine tax assessors into the County Assessor.
Peterson has since proposed a compromise which still merges the fire departments, but leaves the trustees and township tax assessors in place. He also has conceded on nearly every point House leaders wanted, except for those that bring about the efficiencies and cost savings.
"The leadership of the Indiana General Assembly has before them a compromise we proposed in order to meet them more than half way," the Mayor said. "They have seven days left, and I urge them to do the right thing and let us cut our expenses and make our government smaller, smarter and more efficient."
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