Abdul-Hakim Shabazz: Check out Kennedy's math 9.14.11

INDIANAPOLIS STAR
Now that we are officially in election season, I wanted to take a few minutes to write about Democrat Melina Kennedy's campaign for mayor.

I thought of writing about the endorsement she received from the Fraternal Order of Police, but this is the same group that is defending officer David Bisard, who's accused of driving drunk and killing someone, so I figured I'd skip that one.

I also thought I'd write about her positions on education reform, but a call to the Statehouse confirmed that she didn't show up to offer testimony on any of the current measures, so it wouldn't be fair to talk about that. So instead I decided to write about her big idea, taking $150 million in public infrastructure money and spending it on what some would call "public welfare."

Kennedy says she wants to take $150 million from the water transfer deal and use it to spend, uh invest, in early childhood education, job training and crime prevention grants and to hire 50 new police officers.

This sounds good until you start adding up this stuff. To do early childhood education right for 1,000 kids, the experts say, would cost $10,000 per child per year ($10 million). She wants to restore crime prevention grant funding to its original amount ($5 million). She wants to do job training. According to the Center for Public Policy Priorities, job training for 6,000 workers will run about $800 a worker -- in 2005 figures; in today's dollars, it's a total of $5 million.

How much have we spent so far? $20 million. And we haven't even gotten to the cops yet.

She wants to hire 50 new police officers. To start, she'll need $2 million. A beginning officer's salary is $40,000. However, by his third year on the force, the officer makes $58,000 for a total of $3.5 million, so Kennedy will need another $1.5 million. And officers need cars, uniforms, health insurance and other expensive items. So by conservative estimates that $2 million is really more like $7 million. But you're saying, "Abdul, that money will come from the endowment." Not so fast, young grasshopper!

The way an endowment works is you put money in the bank and live off the interest it generates. In good times you are lucky to get a 5 percent rate of return on your money. In this day and age, endowments are struggling to stay afloat. But let's say times are good and we get that 5 percent. Five percent of $150 million is $7 million.

Now go back and add up the costs of Kennedy's investments: Early childhood education ($10 million) plus 50 new cops ($7 million) plus job training ($10 million) plus crime prevention grants ($5 million) equals $27 million. Follow me on the math here: $7 million in returns minus $27 million in expenditures equals $20 million deficit. (I wish I could print that in red ink). And that works only if the endowment is generating money.

By the way, the cost of Kennedy's programs is actually more than the above mentioned. By taking $150 million from roads and infrastructure, she costs the city the chance to get matching federal funds to the tune of about $100 million. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't better streets, sidewalks and removal of abandoned homes add to property values and attract businesses to areas? Kennedy has never said which neighborhood projects would not get done once she took the $150 million out of the pool. That doesn't surprise me because she never showed up to offer testimony (just like school reform) when the city held public hearings on what to do with the money from the water deal.

I know Kennedy's been given credit for having "vision," but after running some rough numbers you could argue Stevie Wonder and Oedipus Rex had better vision and Wile E. Coyote had better math. This isn't vision for 2021; this is an idea by someone whose political vision is 20/200.

Abdul-Hakim is an attorney and editor of IndyPolitics.org. He can be reached at abdul@indypolitics.org.