New Albany’s mayor, Jeff Gahan, is raising concerns that the city and county are moving towards a merger. This comes after a change in Indiana state law that has left Floyd County leaders working on solutions to an expected loss in tax revenue.
Background
Indiana’s Senate Enrolled Act One provided sweeping tax cuts for property owners across the state, but has left local governments making budget changes to adapt to a potential loss in tax revenue. Local governments can opt for a ‘Municipal Unit Strategic Taskforce’ comprised of a county government member and members from city governments. The goal is to work through how local income tax revenue is shared among the governments.
Mayor Gahan called the task force an attempt to move Floyd County toward a merger of the city and county’s services. In a statement, Gahan wrote, ‘It’s clear that mergers like this do not work, and they typically result in decreased services for cities and increased taxes for everyone.’ County Council president Danny Short sits on the task force and says there are no talks of a county-city merger and the process to do so would be long.
Response from County Council President
However, Short says there would be benefits if a merger did happen. ‘I’m a little confused by his statements. There’s been no active talks of any type of UNIGOV,’ Short said. ‘Are there efficiencies out there to be realized if there was a UNIGOV? Yes, there are. We have nothing connected. We used to have parks together. We used to have 911 together. We used to have an animal shelter together. It’s all been split.’ Ahead of the taskforce’s Thursday evening meeting, Mayor Gahan said it is difficult to negotiate with the county because of a $45 million discrepancy in the county’s records.
Short says the mayor is talking about software issues that have since been resolved. ‘I think he should worry about what’s going on within his city limits other than to attack the county officials,’ Short said. Mayor Gahan did not respond to requests for comment.
Original reporting: WLKY Louisville — read the source article.
