The Northwest Indiana Regional Bus Authority is preparing a case to share in local gaming tax revenue in the upcoming Indiana General Assembly session.
The RBA faces a stiff June deadline to find a dedicated funding source or its bus services will shut down. An Indianapolis mass transit coalition wants the Indiana General Assembly to allow referendums to fund public transit, a strategy that Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels supports.
But RBA lobbyist Calvin Bellamy said focus has turned to initiatives with the potential to produce a “more certain result” than a referendum.
“Because the time frame is so short and the money runs out in June, the timing of a referendum would be a little late,” Bellamy said.
Daniels gave his support to referendums for public transit during a speech Friday in Indianapolis where he unveiled his 2012 legislative goals.
“This is not to comment on the merits of new taxes or the huge investment that might go into mass transit,” Daniels said.
Daniels said the property tax reforms passed in 2008 protected Indiana’s taxpayers, but referendums are appropriate if a local unit of government or school district can make a good case for “a little extra taxation.”
“The people of that jurisdiction ought to have the right to be heard on it and decide on it,” Daniels said.
The RBA is working with state Rep. Linda Lawson, D-Hammond, on a bill that would give the RBA a “small amount” of gaming tax revenue collected in Northwest Indiana. Lawson said on Friday that she’s still working on details of the proposal and nothing is finalized.
Bellamy said negotiations are ongoing and the RBA is also focusing on a more unified approach when competing for state and federal grant dollars.
As for the legislative proposal, “the nitty gritty is still a matter of negotiations,” Bellamy said.
Ideally, he said, the four Lake County governmental units that receive funding from casinos, Gary, Hammond, East Chicago and Lake County, would dedicate some of that money for transit.
Last year a proposal was discussed that required each of the four units to give $500,000 for a combined $2 million, which the RBA would have fully matched.
But the concept, renewed for this year, never went beyond the theoretical stage.
“It’s not realistic that a tax is going to be passed locally to fund buses,” said Hammond Mayor Tom McDermott Jr., the brainchild behind the idea. “If it succeeds, buses will continue to roll. If it fails, public transportation will grind to a halt this June.”