If you install energy-efficient windows or insulation in your home, you get a tax break -- which encourages people to think green in order to get more green back.
Now, Lake County is thinking of going more green, but it is going to cost some long green -- maybe as much as $12 million. The county will have to borrow that money because the piggy bank was broken open and spent a long time ago.
The Lake County Council is eyeing replacement of everything from windows in the Gary courthouse, which was built in the early days of the city, to plumbing, air conditioning and insulation at the juvenile detention center, which is less than a decade old.
It follows on the heels of the $18 million the county borrowed in 2007 to refurbish county buildings.
The firm hired to do the most recent work, Ameresco, did a 2006 study of the efficiency of county government buildings and found in most cases they were wanting. This is not surprising given that most of the buildings the county uses were built between 1924 and 1974.
The 2007 renovations were to save the county $208,000 a year in energy costs, and the latest round is supposed to save the county $334,000 annually in energy bills. So if we keep this up, maybe at some point NIPSCO will be paying us to run the county.
What is troubling about this whole scenario is not the savings, of course, nor the environmentally sound way the county is going about replacing ancient, inefficient items with new stuff that consumes less and wastes less.
Nor is it the necessity of the improvements. If the air conditioning is not working in an Indiana July, ain't nobody going to be happy, and you don't want to be a defendant in front of a judge whose air is off and whose powder room isn't working.
What is bothersome is the return, year after year, to the lenders with hat in hand and wallet open. The lenders are not there out of altruistic generosity. They are there to make money on the millions we are borrowing.
We are borrowing at the city and town level. We are borrowing at the county level. And we are doing it because we have consistently since 2003 not been getting the property taxes done on time.
I am not an accountant by any stretch of the imagination, but I am going to hazard a guess that the money we are saving by going to more energy-efficient windows, boilers, air conditioners and such is going to be eaten up in large part by the interest we are paying on multimillion-dollar loans.
I've said it before when Munster or Hammond or whichever has to borrow for capital improvements they would normally have funded through cumulative capital improvement line items in their budgets.
It's more than time for the state and locals to get this income tax situation under control for the good of the municipalities, the county and the taxpayers, who still don't know when they are going to get their bills in the mail.
We just celebrated Independence Day.
Isn't it high time we declared financial independence from the banks?
The opinions are solely those of the writer. He can be reached at markk@nwitimes.com or (219) 933-4170.
