Lawrence Mayor Steve Collier filed a petition March 23 with the Marion County Superior Court over the Lawrence Common Council’s decision to appropriate $250,000 to investigate who was at fault when the city’s 2022 budget was not submitted to the state by deadline.
The petition asks the court to declare the appropriation null and void, based on state statutes that say an appropriation cannot be made without the mayor’s recommendation. Collier’s petition also asks the court to rule that the council was at fault for the 2022 budget issue, because it failed to provide the details needed for that budget to be submitted on time.
Lawrence Common Council President Tyrrell Giles issued a statement in response to the mayor’s petition. In it, Giles said he was disappointed that the mayor chose to file a lawsuit rather than work with the council to complete the investigation.
“Initial information indicates that in November of 2021, the mayor and the controller ignored the council’s adopted budget and tax rate and chose to not upload budget forms to the State of Indiana,” Giles stated. “It appears that because of that decision, the citizens of Lawrence were taxed at a rate that was 12 percent higher than what the council had approved, and the mayor received $1.5 million more in taxpayer funds.”
The statement did not address the mayor’s claim that the appropriation did not follow the process required by state law.
The mayor’s petition names all the council members, but not all of them voted in favor of the investigation funds. Democrat Rick Wells was among those who opposed that appropriation, along with Republican Tom Shevlot.
“The mayor’s action to stop this ‘investigation’ is warranted,” Shevlot said in response to a request for comment. “The taxpayers are asked to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to investigate a budget they cut without providing the line-item details of where the cuts were to be made.”
The 2022 budget normally would have been submitted to the state in fall of 2021. According to the mayor’s petition, Collier’s office submitted a proposed budget in September of that year, totaling $27.8 million. The council chose to reduce that budget by several million dollars. The mayor’s office did not support those cuts, and therefore let the council know that it must provide the details about where those cuts should be made.
There was some back and forth, with various amendments and additional budget cuts by the council. According to the petition, the final budget ordinance that passed in late October did not include the specific line-item details that are required to be able to submit it to the state. The mayor’s petition says that his office did tell the council and the council’s financial advisors that if it did not have that information, the 2022 budget would not be submitted and the city’s budget would revert to the 2021 budget.
The reversion meant that the spending plan for 2022 matched that of 2021, totaling $25.7 million. The mayor’s petition notes that the council’s financial advisor gave a presentation to the council in May of 2022, and the mayor’s office held budget workshops over the summer. Collier’s petition states that each of those events included information about the reversion,
In his statement, Giles said the council did not know about the reversion until November of 2022, which is when the council decided to start an investigation into the matter.
According to the state courts’ online database, Collier’s petition has been assigned to a five-judge panel. The council has 30 days to answer the petition.
