I'm not sure this will come as a surprise to anyone who has been awake the past couple of decades, but the Center Township Trustee's Office is still fleecing taxpayers after all these years. Its annual budget has now grown to $12.7 million, only $1.7 million of which is spent on its primary mission--poor relief. It's still spending more than $2 on personnel costs for every $1 in relief it provides to the poor with an annual payroll of $3.7 million for its 74-person staff. The township is also sitting on $6.7 million in reserves but refuses to return money to taxpayers. "I wish I had more money to access," Center Township Trustee Eugene Akers told the IBJ's Kathleen McClaughlin. The township was sitting on $10.5 million before the economic downturn hit in 2008.
McLaughlin highlights some of Akers' wasteful spending. He spent $572,000 renovating space in the Julia Carson Government Center for the small claims court. The problem is that the small claims court is fighting a legal battle to block the move of its court facilities from the City-County Building where it pays $16,000 a year in annual rent payments. A trial court ruled in the court's favor, but Akers has appealed that decision to the Supreme Court. The legal battle alone cost the township more than $300,000 last year in legal fees.
Akers, a retired IPS janitor, tells McLaughlin that a Sunday sermon about the "teach the man to fish" proverb inspired him to create a job-training program. So Akers went out and spent more than $600,000 to purchase a building where unemployed persons can receive free training on the basics of carpentry, electrical wiring and small-engine repair, although no certification accompanies the training. Critics says Akers could have put the money to wiser use by paying scholarships for persons to receive accredited training from agencies already providing job-training services. Akers told McLaughlin he didn't rely on other sources to provide the training because "I don't have any extra money to give away to another program." "The money I have here is quite adequately spent on the people I need to help," he added.
Akers tells McLaughlin he plans to offset costs by opening up a thrift shop and a small-engine repair service in the building where the job training is provided. Sounds a little like the thrift shop Julia Carson operated when she was trustee decades ago. Her office provided vouchers that could only be used at the township's thrift shop, but the recipients complained that clothing items cost more at the township-run thrift store than they could purchase them elsewhere.
Center Township collects over $3 million a year in property taxes and gets almost $2 million a year from the local income tax. The township's properties generate about $500,000 a year in rents. Akers tells McLaughlin that the cost of maintaining the township's assistance office at 863 Mass Avenues is "ungodly." "I could sell everything and build something new," he tells her. He probably will.
In a separate story, McLaughlin looks at what townships throughout Marion County are spending on poor relief during these tough times for the four-year period from 2008-11. Not much as it turns out. Center Township's spending peaked in 2008 with $2.6 million in expenditures before declining to $1.7 million. Lawrence Township's poor relief spending has dropped a third from $301,000 to $207,000. Perry Township's spending dropped the most from $158,000 to $60,000. Wayne Township's spending has been cut back substantially from $918,000 to $518,000. Washington Township's spending fell from $263,000 to $177,000, while Warren Township's spending has remained flat. Only Pike saw an increase in spending from $244,000 to $345,000. indiana politics civil rights law
Chris Murray
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26 Mar 21:14
Punch Burger - Revisit
by Erin in Indy
Chris Murrayi want to go to here
The males in my household have a thing for burgers lately,
and frankly, I was getting kind of tired of going to the same places that we
always go, even though I like them. We
decided to take a little road trip downtown and revisit Punch Burger with the kids.
Ok, so maybe the secret real reason I wanted to go again so
soon is because I know Punch recently changed their bacon to Smoking Goose
bacon and I wanted to go in there and show some support (and eat some of that
bacon). I have also been hearing about
this “burnt cheese” option which intrigued me, so that is also what I
ordered—the burnt cheese burger with a runny fried egg and bacon (of course)
($9.24). I sort of screwed it up because
I really just wanted those things on the burger, and they gave me the regular
burnt cheeseburger that also has a bunch of other stuff on there too (lettuce,
ketchup, onions, etc.). No biggie, I just picked them off, but I need to be
more careful about how I order my burger.
Ok, it looks messy, but tasty! |
So first off, the bacon was great. Soooo much better than
the old bacon option there. I will say, it is slightly pricier, but this is
certainly a case of you get what you pay for. And it is totally worth it. The burnt cheese was very interesting. I sort
of expected the cheese to be melted regularly on the burger with just edges
that were burnt. These were actually
crisps of cheese that were cooked until crispy and then placed on top. They were tasty, and had an interesting
crunch to them, but I can’t say this would be a regular order for me because I
missed the cheesiness of the cheese on the burger. But a very interesting
concept. The burger itself was good. The
quality of the meat is high—I just wish they wouldn’t cook it so much. I was so
busy ordering all the extra things I wanted (and screwing it up), I didn’t even
think to ask to have it cooked to a particular temperature. Next time I would
see if they would do it. They did ask if I wanted the egg runny or not, and
they cooked it perfectly.
Hubby ordered a “build your own” (what I was trying to do)
with cheese, grilled onions and bacon ($7.54).
It was really, really good. He got even more bacon than I did and had
the right amount of cheesiness that I missed. He did love my little fried bits
of cheese and added a few on top of his (hmmm…wonder if you can just order a
side of fried cheese). We shared waffle
fries. They’re waffle fries, so you know
they are not making them fresh, but they were done exactly how they should have
been. Hot and crispy—and they season them with a seasoning mix that is pretty
tasty.
The kids each got a kid’s meal, which comes with a smaller
slider and a side of waffle fries. They
thought they were fine, but because they were pretty small, they were even a
bit drier. (My daughter also informed me
that the buns were just a bit too big for the size of the meat). I think next
time they would just split one regular burger and be happier. The kids also enjoyed the fancy soda machine
where you can mix up different flavors into your soda (even though they don’t
drink soda). They made different flavors
of lemonade and were happy.
I would say overall, Punch has taken a pretty solid burger and
made it even better with the addition of kick ass bacon. It’s nice to have a local
place downtown serving this kind of more casual food.
Punch Burger
137 E. Ohio Street
Indy 46204
317/426-5280
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