Editor,
I have analyzed the Storm Water budget and there are numerous one-time expenditures totaling $290,000 that are included in the total expenditures from 2009-2013. Using the cumulative five-year expenditure, divided by five years, a $646,000 yearly budget is derived. This is the figure upon which the Zionsville Town Council has based the proposed annual Storm Water Tax/Fee of $3.86 per month, per unit.
If you take the $290,000 figure and divide it by five years, it results in an average of about $60,000 per year that should not be included in the 2013 Storm Water budget.
If the town council decides at Tuesday’s meeting to approve this tax/fee, the 2013 Storm Water budget upon which the rate is determined should be reduced by this amount, resulting in a figure of $586,000. The resulting tax or fee rate should not be based on the inflated $646,000.
The annual average of $60,000 built into the current budget is nothing more than marshmallow fluff.
Are we being double-dipped? If these budget line items are currently included in the Town’s annual budget, and the services are already provided to the tune of an average of $646,000 per year over the past four years, and it is currently funded by property taxes, why is the town council proposing creation of a new utility that henceforth would be funded by a new fee? Is this some sort of scam? Or, perhaps it’s fraud on the part of the town leaders to raise an additional $650,000 per year in tax revenue? Why? Perhaps it’s to pay the penalty of consolidation and install sewers inUnionTownshipto benefit developers?
John Notarianni
46077