Southern Wayne Neighborhood Organization

Indy Works Projects

Dear Wayne Townsip Resident

I hope you are closely following the mayor’s proposals to consolidate all fire departments, trustees, and assessors in Marion County.
Do you realize that if this happens, there will no longer be a Wayne Township Fire Department? The world-class training grounds and conference center bought and paid for with your hard-earned tax dollars will then belong to the city.
Firefighters who respond to your house may live in Lawrence, Beech Grove, or Warren Township. Will they care about you as much as the firefighters who have served this township for over 50 years?
There will no longer be a trustee’s office on west Washington Street to help those in need. We will no longer have our own township assessor, who does everything he can to help keep our property taxes low.
As a member of the Wayne Township Board, I have worked hard to make our fire department one of the best in the county. The trustee and other board members have worked hard to increase service in all areas, including improving our insurance rating for fire insurance.
Our goal has always been to provide the best service possible, take care of our neighbors, improve our township, yet keep property taxes as low as possible.
We have succeeded in reaching our goals. When your government comes from the City-County Building downtown, will their goals be the same? Remember, this is the same mayor who was going to eliminate our only transit bus route to save money.
The mayor’s plan will cause our taxes to increase. The services we receive will not be as good. Big government is too busy to care about people. Our small, local township government does care about our neighbors.
We are fighting to keep our fire department, trustee, and assessor. They were hired by you, the residents and voters, not big government downtown. We need your help to allow us to continue to help you.
Please don’t believe that this new plan will make things better, lower taxes, and improve services. Think about it. It’s the same thing as the politicians in Washington, DC telling us how to run our schools. They are out of touch. We live and work here every day and know what our neighbors really need and want.
If you care about your neighborhood, your local fire department, and your trustee and assessor, please get involved in making sure the mayor stops trying to take them away from you.
In the meantime, please rest assured that we are all here to serve you.

Roger Bowser
President, Wayne Township Board

Indy Works The Facts

97% of the Indianapolis Fraternal Order of Police members voted against city-county police merger because safety would not be maintained.

• From studies and trips to cities where consolidation has already taken place all city officials report no savings-all report it costs more!2

• After Louisville consolidated, the Police Department budget was $7 million more than the total amount of the seperate department budgets .3



• Independent consultants found that a tax increase will be necessary to implement the fire consolidation plan. The same consultants found township taxpayers outside of the Indianapolis Fire Department service area will bear the majority of the property tax burden necessary to implement the plan.4

• Studies on fire department mergers show that taxes have gone up under consolidation, even if services are not improved.5

• Research shows that fire service costs are lower with smaller governments offering various levels of service and competition than when all are merged to the highest level.6



• Jacksonville: The consolidation resulted in increased property taxes, which had been decreasing prior to the merger.7

• Toronto: Consolidation resulted in growths in expenses and payroll increases. The city’s budget increased by over half a billion dollars.8

• Consolidations in general have not reduced costs and in fact may have increased costs, according to a report from the National Research Council.

1 Vince Huber, Indianapolis Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) President
2 Vince Huber, Indianapolis Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) President
3 Louisville Offers Lesson in Mergers. Indianapolis Star. Brendan O’Shaugnessy. Aug. 2005
4 Reedy & Peters LLC, Jan. 2005
5 Sandy Springs: A Case Study on Centralization of Local Government. Eva C. Galambos Ph.D. Nov. 1999
6 Sandy Springs: A Case Study on Centralization of Local Government. Eva C. Galambos Ph.D. Nov. 1999
7 Suburbs Without A City: Power and City-County Consolidation. H.V. Savitch & Ronald K. Vogel. University of Louisville. July 2004
8 Jeffrey Cohan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “MetroVisions: Toronto Stumbling Six Years After Huge Mergers.” Sept. 20, 2004
9 Suburbs Without A City: Power and City-County Consolidation. H.V. Savitch & Ronald K. Vogel. University of Louisville. July 2004

Non-Partisam Study

For immediate release Friday, October 21, 2005

Non-partisan study supports consolidation of assessing functions, as suggested by Indy Works

INDIANAPOLIS - The Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute, a private, non-profit governmental research organization, this week released a study of the property tax assessment system in Indiana, which supports consolidating assessment functions from the township level to the county level.

"The delegation of responsibility for property assessment to township officials essentially is an artifact of the mid-19th century," the summary of the Property Tax Equalization Study states. "The state should transfer responsibility for assessment from townships to counties."

This matches Mayor Bart Peterson's Indianapolis Works '06 proposal, which would eliminate the nine elected township tax assessors in Marion County and move those functions and resources under the existing County Assessor.

Indianapolis Works '06 is the plan to reform local government and save local taxpayers $35 million every year.
We have pointed out that there is no one official in Marion County that is accountable and responsible for countywide uniform assessments," Mayor Peterson said. "This non-partisan study demonstrates what we have all believed on the local level for some time - there are better ways to conduct assessments in Marion County."

"This is important information for taxpayers, and the state legislature must consider this as we move to more government reform and efficiency."

The study found:


*Wide disparities exist from county to county, and even within counties and townships, between the assessed valuation of a property and what it sold for.
*There is a lack of uniformity in how assessments are made and inconsistency in how rules are applied.
*Often-incomplete records vary from county to county, and state rules are ignored, making a market-value tax system difficult to achieve.

The Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute, formed in 1987, is Indiana's only independent statewide source of continuing research into the impact of state taxing and spending policies in Indiana.

For more information, contact:
Steve Campbell, [317] 327-3622