EDITORIAL: A qualified yes to Lake County income tax

Times of Northwest Indiana

Talk of a Lake County income tax has surfaced again. It's a conversation that must take place.

It is now becoming apparent that the property tax caps are affecting not just the larger cities in Northwest Indiana but smaller communities as well.

The spending cuts that have been needed for a long time are being made. Whiting, for example, has cut around 25 percent of its payroll since Mayor Joe Stahura took office.

Whiting and Hammond and working more closely on efficiencies like merging their fire departments.

Change isn't just coming; in many cases it's already here.

It's also clear that the Indiana General Assembly is not going to go to bat for Lake County. Key lawmakers' long-standing position that Lake County needs to use available tools before getting help from the Statehouse is unchanged.

So now the mayors and others are talking about the possibility of enacting a local tax, which likely would be an income tax.

Stahura deserves credit for his leadership on this issue.

The key to our support of Stahura's proposal, and likely its success, is the distribution formula.

A 1 percent income tax would generate about $92 million. The plan being shopped around calls for devoting half of the money to the municipalities and the county and the remaining half to major projects, including those on the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority's agenda.

That money could provide the local match for infrastructure projects like the Regional Bus Authority, finishing the Little Calumet River levee project and then maintaining the levees, and expanding the South Shore service.

This has the advantage of moving these projects forward while still forcing the county and municipalities to be frugal.

How that $46 million would be split between the county and the municipalities has to be worked out yet. It was the unfair distribution formula that sank the income tax the last time.

Stahura was in Indianapolis on Thursday, trying to gain legislative support for this plan. We give it our qualified support, depending on the specifics.