The Journal and Courier has an article about the dire financial situation of Carroll County. Nancy Cripe sums up the cause of this predicament:
Our revenue isn’t keeping pace with our expenses,” Cripe said. “We have no growth in Carroll County. Our population has been the same for 100 years. We have no new industry.”
The county may have to go from three ambulances down to two (they had four a year ago). Given that the county is geographically large, doesn’t have a hospital and ambulance runs have to be made to Monticello, Lafayette, or Kokomo, there is a very good chance that reducing the number of available ambulances will result in a death sooner rather than later. The Sheriff’s Department is looking at cuts that would leave times in the day when no officers are on duty.
So far this year, Cripe said the county has had to make big and small cuts.
The sheriff’s department has lost one deputy and two workers in the county jail. Emergency Medical Services has lost seven people since last year and cutting one ambulance would cost six more jobs. Several full-time jobs have been cut to part-time, and several part-time jobs are being cut or going unfilled.
Animal control has been cut, and funding for the county museum is gone. The heat in the courthouse has been turned down to 68 degrees, and space heaters in most rooms have been banned.
There will be no raises for employees this year, and the commissioners and council members are giving up their health benefits.
Those cuts have made up 2/3 of the shortfall; the county has $600,000 to go. In the comment section of the article, one of the commenters suggested that Carroll County should simply be absorbed by White, Howard, and Tippecanoe Counties.
Consolidation. Maybe it needs to cease to exist.
Consolidation will become a familiar term in Indiana in the coming years. I personally think that the city of Whiting will have to join the City of Hammond, and more than likely this will be the first municipality in Indiana to cease to exist because of the caps.
So many Carroll County residents are preoccupied with horrible roads (true) and agriculture development (also true), that they fail to see the “big picture.” I have real sympathy for the Carroll County leaders who have to fix this mess. It’s no longer a matter of whose fault or “not in my backyard.” It’s time for the county residents to focus on solutions and quit griping about the problem.
It’s going to take significant investment in Carroll County economic development to establish a tax base that can support the services the citizens have so blithely used (and taken for granted) in the past several years.
Tangentially, the “internet experts” of today spend their time jockeying a mouse and believing all the negative propaganda posted to the WWW. (It is important to note that none of these so-called experts quote PURDUE scientific sources) These people have far too much time on their hands, and seem to exist solely to harass our government officials who are actually doing a decent job of tackling the problem and looking for reasonable solutions.
And yes, I live and work in Carroll County, I have done the research, talked to my government officials, and attended both Commissioner and Council meetings.
You would think that with their proximity to Indiana Beach that they couldn’t come up with some kind of tourism-related industry. The population of Carroll County is very small though… I think only around 10,000?
Sounds like they need a $14 million highway… :)