It looks like my opponent is at it again. In desperation he grasps at half-truths, in hopes that you won't look into the whole story and look at his own disastrous voting record when it comes to taxes and fiscal responsibility.
While he's worried about pointing the finger at me, the county commissioners set the yearly pay increases that county employees receive. My salary is a whopping $6788.14 this year.
But don't look at the state budget and his pay increases over the last 20 years! And just ignore the fact that his campaign coffers are getting fat to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars from special interest groups, the HRCC, and big business.
Then he points to an example of county government making hard decisions, yet still lowering the general fund, providing money to pay for the central dispatch budget, and putting money away to build a jail. Yet, he forgets to mention that by saving that money, we were able get premium rates on our bonds and lock in a low interest rate of less than 3% on our new jail, which will save taxpayers millions over the life of the loan.
He also failed to mention that the state-imposed housing of level 6 felony inmates in local jails, instead of state prisons, has caused massive overcrowding in county jails and has cost Wabash County alone millions of dollars over the last few years to house inmates at other facilities. The state and Dan Leonard's out of touch legislation are forcing counties' hands to build new jails to handle the increase and increasing our financial burdens.
While he voted to pass the largest budget in state history, the state sits on a huge surplus of taxpayer money. This year, I helped decrease our county general fund and cut all unnecessary expenses.
While his gas tax, which was to go to infrastructure, pours into the state general fund, Wabash County is having to use federal ARPA funds to help us pay for our aging infrastructure, because the money isn't coming in from the state to handle our needs, like it was promised.
Maybe he needs to spend a little more time at home, so he can see how the policies he is making at the State House are affecting small communities like ours. He seems a little out of touch!