At least one good thing came out of state legislators' incompetence in failing to pass a new state budget in the waning days of this General Assembly session. It took so much energy to fail there that they didn't even get around to a measure to give Indianapolis revenue options for the money-hemorrhaging Capital Improvements Board, which will now have to call an emergency meeting:
CIB President Bob Grand said this morning that he is "very disappointed" about the collapse of the CIB rescue plan in the Statehouse. The CIB, which runs the city's stadiums and convention center, needs state and city authority to raise taxes on hotel rooms, stadium tickets and car rentals so it can plug a projected deficit of $47 million next year.
If a state plan had authorized only local options, that would have been one thing (and it could even be argued that cities shouldn't need state permission to raise local taxes). But there was always a good possibility that the state solution would have included something that required all Hoosiers to pay something. Now, at least, Indy officials will have to try to figure out how to fix the mess they created.
