Lake County considers laying off hundreds amidst looming tax caps

BY BILL DOLAN, Times of Northwest Indiana
bdolan@nwitimes.com

CROWN POINT | Lake County government officials unveiled Tuesday their proposed list of employee layoffs, benefit reductions and service cuts to reduce spending by $15 million next year.

Lake County Councilmen Larry Blanchard, R-Crown Point, and Ted Bilski, D-Hobart, and Lake County Attorney John Dull said a 44-point plan drafted by the council this summer represents the opening move in what will be a painful effort to construct a 2009 budget by September.

"It's a new age, and we must adjust," Bilski said Tuesday. Blanchard said the alternative to the cuts is "we'd have to shut government down."

The new age is being brought on by legislation that will cap individual property tax bills between 1 percent and 3 percent of assessed value beginning next year. The caps will reduce tax revenues upon which local government depends to make its payroll and pay other bills.

The most sweeping of the recommendations would be to save $5.8 million by cutting the county's entire payroll by 5 percent -- about 150 jobs.

Another suggestion is to save $3.5 million by cutting 45 positions from the sheriff's department, eliminating the sheriff's Lake Michigan marine patrol, reducing county police patrols to only unincorporated rural areas and the Town of Winfield and eliminating take-home cars for uniformed officers.

Eliminating 490 jobs from the county government's part-time payroll would save about $750,000, and laying off 22 part-time lawyers representing indigent defendants in Lake Superior Court County Division courts for a savings of $696,000 also are among the recommendations.

Other recommendations include borrowing from unspent funds that were earmarked for anticipating health insurance claims, new parkland purchases and other capital costs.

Blanchard and Bilski said they hope the recommendations generate cooperation and leadership among other elected officials and department heads to come up with less painful or more efficient ways to cut spending.

Public budget hearings begin Aug. 5.