Political activist extraordinaire Diana Vice, author of the blog, Welcome to My Tea Party, alerted me to changes made by the Senate to House Bill 1254. The changes appear to indicate that any local government unit, which would include cities, towns, school districts, even the infamous Capital Improvement Board, could enter into no bid contracts to renovate or repair existing buildings as long as that contract did not exceed $400,000.
Of course, the $400,000 limit doesn't mean too much. For any project in excess of $400,000 all they have to do is divide it up into more than one project to evade the cap.
Nonetheless, do we really want to open the door yet further to pay to play politics in Indiana? There is already a strong connection doing business with government entities and the contributions they make to candidates. For example, Mayor Greg Ballard's 2008 contributor list is a who's who of companies doing business, or wanting to do business, with the City of Indianapolis. House Bill 1254 would simply make a bad situation worse? Why isn't the legislature protecting taxpayers?
4 comments:
A few awesome senators protected taxpayers this morning, Paul. They kicked some legislative butt today at the statehouse. The schemers paid a huge price for trying to pull an 11th hour dirty trick. They actually killed two birds with one stone, because now the entire bill is dead along with the amendment. Now two bad bills went down in defeat. Thanks for shining the light of day on this, Paul.
Kudos to Diana for her continued work on behalf of the taxpayers and kids. Portions of the construction industry have for too long had too much influence over school budget spending. We need competition between honest contractors in order to protect tax dollars.
Diana, this is unbelieveable. Thanks for being there and thanks for breaking it.
This is the stuff the press will never say.
My first thought went to the school construction budgets, as well.
I'm glad to hear it was defeated. Good job !
Post a Comment