October 2007 No. 42Table of ContentsFSSA balks at federal penalties |
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Some 4,000 jobs have been eliminated from Indiana state government, reports The Indianapolis Star. Many were replaced by contracted private sector workers. For instance, 2000 state positions were dropped in the Family & Social Services Administration, while it now contracts with an IBM-led group employing 1,400 to handle program eligibility applications.
The state now uses a pay-for-performance system for its employees—a 10% salary increase for top producers, 4% for most, and no pay raise for under-achievers. While most state employee jobs have had salary increases, executive and judicial branch budgets dropped $15 Million. The mid-point salary for the 35,300 state workers is $34,700. The Indiana database at www.indystar.com/data/government/statepay.shtml shows the pay of most positions/personnel.
Top dog among state employees is IU’s basketball coach Kevin Sampson at a half-million dollars followed by Purdue University president France Cordova at $425,000. In fact, all of the 44 state salaries in excess of a quarter million are at state universities. Pay for the 16 psychiatrists in state institutions ranges from $108,000 to $222,000/year.
The Governor’s $95,000/year salary is set by the General Assembly. Lawmakers doubled their own base pay to $21,700 in 2009, and it will increase along with other state employees’. In 2006, the highest-paid legislator got salary and daily and meeting per diem of $52,175, still low compared to neighboring states. Of course, most politicians make much more after their public employment, as lobbyists, speech-makers, corporate board members, etc.
Once again, four Hoosiers made the Forbes 400 list of Americans with the greatest wealth. It took $1.3 Billion to make the magazine’s cut this year:
Atop the Forbes list was Bill Gates for the 14th year at $59B followed by Warren Buffett at $52B. Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page joined the list this year with company stock growth at 500%.
“If journalists spent as much time studying the lives of the poor as they do gazing at the rich, it would help us all keep our heads on straight,” Forbes’ Jeffery Sachs wrote. “We need a Forbes One Billion for the other end of the scale—the superpoor.” In fact, Sachs calculates that the 946 billionaires in the world had an annual income gain of $350B, the same as the income of the “world’s bottom billion” who live at $1/day. That’s a ratio of one million superpoor for every one superrich. Hardly seems right, fair…whatever.
Three-fourths of the “one-billionth-aires” are hungry farm families or live in urban slums around the globe. They have “no collateral, no savings and no ability to borrow, subprime or otherwise…Little food, no assets, meager—if any—cash income. No collateral, no credit and no fertilizer. And in the villages, no roads, no electricity, no clinics, no safe drinking water. But yes, warmth, humanity, hard work and love for their children. And hope, especially hope, even in faces of their children dying of malaria for want of a $1 medicine or a $5 bed net.”
Just as the Fortune 400 “didn’t make it by monopolies, inheritance or government largesse,” but by creativity, hard work, and extreme luck “in riding the crest of globalization, finance and information technologies,” America “will learn that extreme poverty “is a global anomaly often resulting from extremes of geography as well as extremes of historical bad luck.” If yesterday’s John D. Rockefeller is today’s Bill Gates, “who else will take up the antipoverty challenge?”
Both the Governor and lawmakers are seen as mostly responsible for the current property tax conundrum; a recent poll found blame spread around to county assessors and the Dept. of Local Gov’t Finance as well. But none were singled out as the primary culprit, and no option for a way out wins majority approval.
By mid-Sept., 21 counties were undergoing new property assessments; 68 counties had their assessments cleared, and 3 counties were still under review—Brown, Putnam, and Starke. Public hearings were ordered for Crawford, Fulton, Jennings, and Spencer due to a large percentage of unchanged business values. Check www.in.gov/dlgf for your county’s status.
The Governor said he will announce his own plan for property tax relief sometime—probably including a state constitutional amendment process—there are several definite hurdles before the property tax saga moves to the General Assembly in 2008:
Stay tuned for more updates.
Indiana’s Family & Social Services Administration (FSSA) does not plan to repay $88M in federal monies spent at state psychiatric hospitals in FYs 2000-2004. The feds say Indiana did not comply with standards for staffing ratios, therapies, and record-keeping which were conditions for getting these funds. FSSA secretary Roob says the audit pointed to aspects of the mental health system that are being upgraded and are reasons for transferring ownership of state facilities to private non-profits.
Not since the Watergate era has Americans’ confidence in the federal government been so low, according to the Gallup annual “Governance” survey. The high point of trust occurred following the 9/11 attacks. Trust in:
| Aspect of Federal Gov’t | Apr ‘74 | Sept 01/02 | Sept 07 |
| The American people | 83% | 78% | 70% |
| The judicial branch | 71% | 75% | 69% |
| Men/Women in political life | 68% | 60% | 55% |
| Handling internat’l problems | 73% | 83% | 51% |
| The legislative branch | 68% | 67% | 50% |
| Handling domestic problems | 51% | 77% | 47% |
| The executive branch | 40% | 72% | 43% |
Not only did Congress once again not get spending bills passed before the fiscal year began on Oct. 1, it had to raise the debt ceiling for the fifth time in six years. It now stands at $9.8 Trillion, up 10%. The national debt equals 2/3rds of the nation’s gross domestic product and grows $1.3B per day. It is 60% higher than when President Bush took office. With the estimated USA population now at 303 million, each citizen's share of this debt—poor or not—is $32,000. Feel better?
While the U.S. Supreme Court deliberates over Indiana’s new voter identification law, people will still have to show a photo ID issued by a federal or state agency to vote this November 6 in municipal elections. Get voter and polling info at www.in.gov/sos/elections.
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