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City Budget Process Starts
MICHIGAN CITY - For the second consecutive year, Michigan City is beginning the budget process with no idea how much money it will have to spend or when it will find out if it needs to cut anything.

"Right now, it's just a crapshoot," Michigan City Controller John Schaefer said Tuesday at a City Council budget workshop. "We haven't gotten our assessed valuation yet, and that's the killer. And really, we don't know when we'll get it."

As city officials begin to work out the kinks in the proposed 2008 budget, the city officially has yet to get final passage on a 2007 budget. According to Schaeffer, confusion downstate with assessments and property tax issues is keeping lawmakers from setting assessed valuations for municipalities.

The city has used the city's 2006 assessed valuation, as that's the last assessed valuation officials have to go by. Schaeffer said most Indiana counties are working without a 2007 budget.

"We'd like to think we have an idea of what we've got to spend, but there's been years when they told us in June what we had to cut," Mayor Chuck Oberlie said. "And we'd already gone through half a year," Schaeffer added.

Despite not knowing yet what they have to spend, Oberlie and Schaeffer proposed a budget that will, among other things, change the way many residents' trash is picked up and give each of the nine City Council members their own laptop computer.

The overall budget came in at $55 million, with between $12,000 and $13,000 going for the computers and $410,000 to a pair of automated garbage trucks that feature mechanical arms used to pick up cans, dump them in the truck and set them back down.

Oberlie said the computers will eliminate a great deal of paper as council members and City Hall will be able to correspond via e-mail. Not all council members have computers of their own.

The new garbage trucks will serve only some of what Oberlie called the "more modern" areas of town, including newer apartment complexes and more modern subdivisions.

"It's an attempt to be more efficient," Oberlie said. "This way, we can put people in other areas where they're needed."

One line item missing from the budget didn't come as a surprise to the councilman who proposed it, although he said he was disappointed. A multi-million-dollar property tax relief program introduced by 6th-Ward councilman Phil Jankowski would've given property owners a $500 check.

The issue was debated for the better part of a year in council chambers, and Jankowski said he'd likely try again next year, probably with some "tweaking."

"I would've liked to have seen it, but I'm not surprised," he said. "We'll know a lot more about the tax situation next year."

Oberlie said he didn't include the move because the city currently is providing tax relief by paying off several multi-million-dollar bond issues that now up the tax burden on city residents.

Contact Jason Miller at jmiller@thenewsdispatch.com.

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Budget Season Begins For City
Proposed budget for 2008 is about $52.5M, but city is still waiting

Amanda Haverstick
The News-Dispatch

MICHIGAN CITY - Michigan City is plunging into budget season, though the process may see a hurdle or two.

Salary ordinances were moved to second reading at Tuesday's Common Council meeting. Sixth Ward Councilman Phil Jankowski, who introduced the ordinances, said city budget hearings will start next week.

Late property tax payments have made preparing the 2008 budget a challenge for officials.

The proposed budget for 2008 is about $52.5 million. About 40 percent of the city's budgeted revenue comes from property taxes.

Due to issues with the most recent reassessment, the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance has not yet approved the city's 2007 budget and has not certified the city's 2007 tax rates or assessed valuation.

In 2006, the city's assessed valuation was $1.3 billion. Since the city does not have a certified assessed valuation for 2007, they are "conservatively assuming the same assessed valuation for 2008 as 2006," according to the proposed budget.

"(City Controller) John Schaefer has made an educated guess on what he thinks we'll have," Jankowski said.

Jankowski said in terms of salaries for the mayor, Common Council members, city clerk, appointed officials and employees, the budget calls for a 3 percent raise.

The mayor's salary for 2008 is $68,571.36. Each council member will be paid a salary of $13,644.80. In 2007, the mayor's salary was $66,574.04 and council members received a salary of $13,247.26.

Jankowski said they would like to have the budget hearings finished before the next council meeting, which will be a formal public hearing.

"Hopefully they'll all be wrapped up next week," Jankowski said.

Contact reporter Amanda Haverstick at ahaverstick@thenewsdispatch.com.