With the news of a budget compromise came news of an apparently agreed-upon fix for the fiscal woes of the Capitol Improvement Board. And once again, it looks like Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard didn't get anything he wanted.
State lawmakers late Monday ignored Mayor Greg Ballard's calls for fewer spending cuts for the Capital Improvement Board and granted him only one of the three tax increases he sought this year to plug the agency's projected $47 million deficit.
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Ballard initially endorsed Daniels' plan but changed his mind last week, saying that after the city "dug deeper" into the CIB's spending, he was "uncomfortable" with how deep those cuts were. Instead, he proposed $12 million in spending reductions, including the $10 million already identified by the CIB.
Robert Vane, Ballard's deputy chief of staff, declined comment late Monday, saying his office would not address the issue until after a final vote on the proposal.
Ballard has changed his mind roughly two-hundred times since this process began, taking the interesting strategy of simply agreeing with every single idea floated, one after the other. I think Vane may finally be on to something by just keeping the guy locked in his office, especially now that it appears the Mayor's Office has absolutely no political capital left at the Statehouse.
It's really unbelievable how little power Ballard now has in these negotiations. It certainly wouldn't be unusual if he were the mayor of some small town across the state, but as the chief executive of Indiana's largest city, you'd think he'd be able to at least have his presence be felt in the process.
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