Op/Ed: Ken Sicard–The view from the corner chair

Our new Governor is pushing to reduce the property taxes that homeowners and property owners pay annually. As a homeowner, this is a welcome piece of news. But as a Town official, it sends chills down my spine.

Why does this reduction effort bother me — because our property taxes are what funds 46% of the Town of Ferdinand’s budget. I sent letters to our Dubois County State Senator and the Senators on the State Tax
and Fiscal Policy Committee this past week detailing why a reduction in property taxes would be disastrous to
our Town.

My thoughts are below.

Currently, our total budget revenue is $2,278,132. As I stated earlier, 46% of this amount is covered by revenue from property taxes (made up of both Real Property {86%} and Business Personal Property Taxes {14%}. To help us pay for our costs, we are expecting to receive $1,044,809 from real property taxes in 2025.

From these real property tax dollars we will fund the following in 2025:

• Police (8 officers) – $229,858 or 22% of our budget, this covers payroll, our 8 police units (vehicles) and all the equipment used by our officers. As an FYI, a new police unit costs approximately $60,000 with another $15,000 to fully outfit it with gear and radar.
• Fire Department (33 firefighters) – $156,721 or 16% of the budget; We currently have five fire apparatus, one rescue truck, one pickup truck and one ATV. Our department is a volunteer group of citizens.
• Town General Fund (three full-time employees and one part-time employee) $167,169 or 16% of the budget; this covers Town Hall payroll, insurances, health care, ADA, and the payroll of Town Hall employees, Council members and our Town Attorney).
• Park (one full time employee and one shared part time employee) – $240,306 or 23% of our budget; this covers our payroll, our three parks upkeep (5th Street, 18th Street, and Old Town Lake) and restroom facilities which are open for use all year plus the upkeep of out two town lakes and dams. Employees from our MVH group also assist in the upkeep.
• MVH (four employees and one shared part-time employee) – $250,754 or 24% of our budget; this covers
  payroll, our road / upgrades, snow removal, storm water retention, weekly trash pick up, and our match for
  the Community Matching Grant program plus the cost to qualify for the CCMG.

Based on the initial Senate Bill 1 documentation, we were being told that this reduction of taxes would be for the Town of Ferdinand around the amount of $164,000 to $169,000 a year. If I use an average of the two amounts, we would be looking at $166,500 – this is a 15.93% reduction.

I noted the following facts that relate to our current budget where we work very hard to retain our police force because the bigger cities, county sheriff departments and State Police offer higher wages. They do entice our officers to leave us. Our firefighters get a very modest fee for working on fire runs but receive nothing for all the training they must attain. Both our Police Department and Fire Department cover the Town 24 hours per day.

Our Town Hall runs with a very small group of dedicated employees. Plus, part of the Town Hall costs covers our one Town Attorney.

If we have to reduce our services, I stated we are not sure where we can do the reduction and not have people
suffer in the end.

To be honest, I get very irritated when I hear that our new Governor says cities and towns are not fiscally responsible. I object strongly to that statement from the view point of the Town of Ferdinand.

In my years on the council (since being elected in 1999, President since 2003), the Ferdinand Town Council has stretched dollars wherever we can. Some examples: In an effort to use our tax dollars more wisely, when our Town Manager moved on, we divided up those duties among our existing employees. We have a 457(b) deferred compensation plan for all our employees with an employer contribution of 5% because we cannot afford the State’s PERF plan with an 11.2% employer contribution requirement and vesting in 5- or 10-year options.

We utilize IPEP free training for our employee’s continuing training needs. We have applied for Police and Fire grants to fund our needs. We have been awarded Southwest Indiana Workforce grants and Alliance of Indiana Rural Water (AIRW) grants and are actively participating in the AIRW apprenticeship program to train and certify our water and wastewater employees to meet State specified standards.

We have delayed until recently updating our Comprehensive Plan. We had to find that we had dollars available to move forward with this (approximately $60,000).

We work with Ferdinand Township to help fund a small part of our Fire Department costs. We also work with Ferdinand Township to help fund a small part of our Park costs.

We are currently addressing a Public Safety Tax with the Dubois County municipalities and County Council to bring in additional dollars to help meet our safety needs throughout our County.

We have applied for and been approved for an SS4A Planning grant for our sidewalks.

Our employee personnel changes over the years have seen us reduce the average age of our employees. This
has allowed us to lower health insurance premiums. These premiums are split between the Town and the
employee.

We are proactively doing rate studies for our water, wastewater and electric utilities so we can be prepared for upcoming capital improvements and for cost increases.

We continue to actively participate in the State’s Community Crossing Matching Grant program so we can benefit from the State’s match and get more done on the roads for our community.

We have incorporated and implemented using “comp time” instead of paying overtime. The determination to use comp time is based on the employee’s decision.

As a homeowner, I can understand that promising a reduction in property taxes is a way to get votes and get
elected to office. But, how do you meet the needs of the citizens when the municipality does not have the money
to pay for the services being given?

Some thoughts on this:

Do we reduce the services or have them discontinued?

With no replacement of funds, do we reduce our police force?

Do we reduce the hours that we have police coverage?

Do we not outfit our firefighters with the best equipment?

Do we not buy new firefighting equipment? (New trucks cost in the excess of $1,500,000.)

Do we only pick up trash every other week or maybe once per month?

Or, do we have an outside company come in to remove trash and each person has to pay for this service and not
the Town?

As a Town official I see the need from the larger community view point. If we are reducing the Town’s property tax revenue then we must replace these dollars from another source.

As a point of interest, my pay as the Town Council President was $10,000 back in 2003 when first coming into this office. In 2025 I received my first increase of 4%. A second point is that in 2024, I invested 717.5 hours in my Town. This averages out to $13.93 per hour. I think the Town has one heck of a deal going from being fiscally responsible.

I asked that if there is a reduction, then there needs to be an equivalent replacement. Without it, the State of Indiana will begin to go backwards very quickly. We won’t be a state where a business would want to come to
do business in. The State of Indiana would not be a place that people would want to move because we would have
no pride of place to offer.

Last week Senate Bill 1 was changed. The result is that it went from being disastrous to just really bad.

We are waiting on updated information to see how it will affect the Town of Ferdinand.

I wanted to let the citizens of my Town and surrounding community know that your Council is doing everything it can to effectively run our Town. And, I feel, we are fiscally responsible to everyone involved. Property taxes at this time are critical to the efficient operation of our town.

With much respect,
KEN SICARD
Town Council President