Dear Editor,

Out of 1,008 townships in Indiana, the Indiana Township Association recognizes one township trustee a year for outstanding service. This year, the distinguished Harold Gene Stofer Trustee of the Year award was given to Knight Township Trustee Kathryn Martin.

Mrs. Martin inherited a $152,597 overdrawn cash balance from Mrs. Linda Durham’s tenure as Knight Township Trustee, according to the Indiana State Board of Accounts audit No. B37346. Durham pled guilty to felony charges of theft after she misappropriated $74,544 of Knight Township money.

Within Mrs. Martin’s first eight months in office, the overdrawn cash balance was reduced by $138,363 (The Indiana State Board of Accounts audit No. B44073). By December 31, 2013, the entire overdrawn cash balance was completely eliminated. Today, Knight Township continues to be financially solvent.

According to the Indiana Township Association, it named Mrs. Martin the 2014 Trustee of the Year because, “She demonstrated determination to serve the public despite the township’s financial issues. Trustee Martin was able to turn around a struggling township that was operating in the red, was able to pay delinquent bills, and earned the respect of the community.”

Knight Township residents deserve to have their township remain financially sound. To ensure this, Knight Township residents should vote to re-elect Knight Township Trustee Kathryn Martin.

Ron Rhodes
Marcia Birge Rhodes

Posted by the CCO without opinion, bias or editing

 
*NOTE:
When Mrs. Martin received the award, the Indiana Township Association released the Indiana State Board of Accounts audit information in their press release announcing her as the Trustee of the Year recipient. That information is below for your review.

Also, if you choose to publish our letter, please use our names only. We have provided you with our phone numbers for you to verify who we are only. Thank you.
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KNIGHT TOWNSHIP 2014 FINANCIAL AUDIT RESULTS/ANALYIS

2008 – 2010 Audit Period: Jan. 1, 2008 – Mar. 31, 2010 (Audit No. B37346: Durham Tenure)

2010 – 2014 Audit Period: Apr. 1, 2010 – Dec. 31, 2013 (Martin Tenure)

1. Current Trustee’s Commencement of Office: -$152,597 Overdrawn Cash Balance. At the conclusion of the office of the former Trustee Linda Durham (“Former Trustee”), the Township Assistance account had an overdrawn cash balance of $152,597.00. See State’s Audit No. B37346. By way of comparison, the Township Assistance account had a positive cash balance of $355,086 when Former Trustee assumed office on Jan. 1, 2008. See State’s Audit No. B37346. By January 1, 2010, the Township Assistance account was overdrawn, and the Township began the 2010 accounting year with a negative cash balance of $15,919.00. See State’s Audit No. B37346. By the time the Former Trustee left office, the overdrawn cash balance had risen to negative $152,597 as of March 31, 2010. See State’s Audit No. B37346.

2. Elimination of Overdrawn Cash Balance. The State’s Audit No. B44073 reflects that the current Township Trustee, Kathryn Martin (Current Trustee), and Township Board have worked to completely eliminate the overdrawn cash balances in both the Township Assistance Account and Payroll Withholdings Account by Dec. 31, 2013. The Township achieved the elimination of the overdrawn cash balances in the following manner:

a. Township Assistance Account – Overdrawn Cash Balance. During her first eight (8) months in office, the Current Trustee and Board reduced the Township Assistance Account’s overdrawn cash balance by $138,363.94. The Township achieved this reduction in the Township Assistance Account’s overdrawn cash balance by difficult reductions in disbursements for Township Assistance during the balance of the 2010 accounting period. By way of illustration, disbursements for Township Assistance were $471,684 in 2010, compared to $572,675 in 2009, meaning that the Township reduced disbursements for Township Assistance by $100,991 in 2010. See State’s Audit No. B37346. Through these difficult reductions in disbursements for Township Assistance, the Township reduced the overdrawn cash balance from $152, 577 at the commencement of the Current Trustee’s office to $14,232. 71 by the end of the 2010 accounting period on Dec. 31, 2010. By December 31, 2013, the overdrawn cash balance in the Township Assistance Account had been completely eliminated. See State’s Audit No. B44073.

b. Payroll Account — Overdrawn Cash Balance. In 2012, the IRS determined that in 2009, during the tenure of the Former Trustee, the Township had failed to pay federal payroll withholdings totaling $1,218.95, thereby resulting in an overdrawn cash balance in the Township’s Payroll Account for the 2012 accounting year. Again, by Dec. 31, 2013, the Current Trustee had caused this overdrawn cash balance to be completely eliminated. See State’s Audit No. B44073.

3. 2014 – No Current Deficit. Through the elimination of the overdrawn cash balances incurred during the prior accounting period (Jan. 1, 2008 – March 31, 2010), the Township begins the 2014 accounting year with no overdrawn cash balances.

By Dan Carpenter
TheStatehouseFile.com

Following the education money in Indiana is easy. Just find the rabbit with the pocket watch and dive down the hole behind him.

Where to begin? How about with Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard and the City-County Council jockeying over a tax increase to leverage donations to provide preschool to a couple thousand kids – while the state, which has the constitutional responsibility for education, sits on a $2 billion surplus.

Then there’s Gov. Mike Pence, turning down $80 million in federal dollars for preschool for the poor because he’s running for president and doesn’t want to Commentary button in JPG – no shadowalienate the Birchite wing of his party, which demonizes Washington and, for that matter, public schools altogether.

Then there’s the Indiana House Republican agenda for 2015, which would (and no doubt will) shift funding from poor urban districts to suburban and rural districts, with the promise of a bigger pie for all. This, from a government that’s consistently bled urban districts by cutting their funding and siphoning it away to charter schools and private schools. It’s a promise you can take to the bank, and hope for a bailout.

Finally, there’s the massive spending by corporate-backed outside “reform” outfits on certain candidates in the race for the Indianapolis Public Schools board – an “investment” in local education that surely will result in more charter schools and further diminishment of a school system that needs all the help it can get if it’s to hold on to its middle-class constituency while serving as a last resort for the poor.

All this money – city, state, federal, private. Going all these directions – to the well-off, the profiteers, the salaries of the nonprofits, the six-figure experts, and in the case of the $80 mil, to some other state where children’s needs trump rightwing ideology and crass personal ambition.

When Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League and former mayor of New Orleans, visited Indianapolis a few years ago, he pointed out that the schools down there that had seen improvement post-Katrina were not necessarily examples of the merits of charters and teacher union-busting, as the public school bashers would have it. Rather, they were beneficiaries of a huge infusion of federal ameliorative funding. “No civilization in the history of the world,” he said, “has declined because it spent too much on education.”

In Indiana of late, we are spending too much education money that could be going to education. And we are leaving education money unspent rather than spend dubious political capital. We pay lip service to the little capsules of our future while refusing, with lame rationalizations and the meanest of motives, to pool the money that’s out there waiting.

You’ve got it, Alice. Curiouser and curiouser.