At first look, Indiana’s $2 billion surplus and the state’s invaluable and impressive network of hiking and biking trails and may not seem to have a lot in common.
But they do when you consider this: That trail system, one of Indiana’s many natural treasures, could be kept alive and growing if Gov. Mike Pence would loosen his stranglehold on at least some of those surplus funds to pay for necessary upkeep and repair of those trails.
As CNHI state reporter Maureen Hayden told you in a front-page story a few days ago, the Indiana trails system — which she artfully described as “3,500 miles of paved pathways winding through scenic parks, along rushing rivers, and past lush farm fields” — is in financial trouble. Pence signed a bill earlier this year that created a mechanism for funding trails upkeep, but exactly $0 has been allocated to the fund so far.
Maybe Pence is precisely correct that Indiana’s having a surplus — a reserve, if you prefer — of more than $2 billion gives our fair state an enviable image of economic strength in the eyes of job-producing companies interested in locating here.
“It [the reserve] is a lead selling point for the state of Indiana,” Pence declared in July 2013, when the surplus was $1.94 billion. “It is an asset to all of our businesses and it is directly related to job creation.”
Or maybe not entirely.
The question is: What is lost to our state by not spending some of that reserve on important state services that cry out for more funding?
Curiously, these are services that are being significantly weakened because of Pence’s tightening of the financial screws on state departments. Because of what the Associated Press earlier this year called “weak tax collections,” Pence has forced state agencies to cut their budgets by 4.5 percent.
Those weak tax collections, in great part, came from the ravages of the national recession in the first decade of this century. But they also come, in significant part, from a series of tax cuts enacted during Pence’s two years in office and predecessor Mitch Daniels’ eight years. In that time, the state revenues were crippled by the end to the state’s inventory tax, the capping of property taxes, a 3-percent cut in personal income taxes that starts next year, and a cut (passed last legislative session) in personal property taxes on machinery and equipment for businesses.
In Penc-enomics, that all makes sense in portraying the state as more attractive to business and industrial developers. But even many in his own party have opposed the single-minded obsession on tax cutting, consequences notwithstanding. For instance, Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett, a Republican as is Pence, was adamant in his opposition as Pence sought to cut the personal property tax revenues by $1 billion. Wiser heads — mainly on the Republican side of the aisle — prevailed, and Pence did not get the depth of cut he desired. (But he’ll be back for more.)
Another Terre Haute Republican, state Rep. Alan Morrison, a trails enthusiast who lives close to Vigo County’s Heritage Trail, told Hayden for her report: “In Indiana, we’re always looking for ways to keep and attract talented people, especially young, talented people. The recreational trails, as popular as they are, are part of the answer.”
Both Bennett and Morrison are quite correct. Neither a once-strong trails system that is allowed to fall into disrepair nor diminished city services will attract the very business and industrial developers all of us in Indiana want to see bring jobs and economic growth to our state.
As Morrison and legislators debate whether to add fees that would produce revenue for the trails, a ready supply of taxpayer-generated money sits in a vault, drawing interest but otherwise not serving current needs. Until an annual method of funding the trails is developed, a few million dollars from the surplus could offer immediate help for the trails — and other health and educational lifelines — in the short term.
Surpluses, of course, have great value and any business or person would want one. But they exist, not just as bragging points, but to augment matters when other sources fail. That is the current situation, fraught with current needs — Indiana’s healthful-lifestyle trails being one.