Brother, can you spare $3.8 Million?
If the city of Muncie is a human body with a failing heart, then Ball State University is the expensive, top-of-the-line pacemaker that has kept that body alive. But now, not only is the heart failing, but so are the kidneys, lungs and nearly every other vital organ in an already broken body. And when that body dies, that fancy pacemaker is worthless.
Muncie is dying, be it a swift death tomorrow, or a slow, agonizing one years down the line. And that death will be due to one thing: money, or rather the lack of. More than 10 percent of Muncie's population is now unemployed, the city now has a $3.8 million deficit for 2009 and, just this week, in an effort to free up funds, Mayor Sharon McShurley has closed two fire stations, leaving five operating firehouses in Muncie.
Five. That's all. Five firehouses to serve more than 60,000 people.
And to rub even more salt in those wounds, the expected savings of these closings is, at best, $30,000, according an article in the Star Press. This comes after the mayor has already cut costs on issues such as software upgrades and police department staffing. While this does follow McSurley's campaign promise of using "city services in a leaner way," I'm not sure this is what her supporters had in mind.
Meanwhile, Ball State University and Ball Memorial Hospital, despite facing their own budget crunches (because of being state-funded), remain the largest and most attractive employers in the city of Muncie. Well, unless your dream job is to work at Wal-Mart (one of Muncie's six highest employers, by the way).
However, despite being such a vital part of the Muncie community, Ball State could be doing more to help its host city. Ball State, because it is a state-run institution, pays no income tax to Muncie. As Joy Leiker reported this week in the Star Press, Ball State contributes $100,000 in fire protection each year, a fee many would like to see go up, but which Ball State officials say they cannot increase without funding from the Indiana General Assembly. And while Muncie withers away from the inside out, in 2007 Ball State received more than $6.7 million in state funding for general repair and rehab. That's almost double what McShurley needs to get Muncie out of debt.
I come from a small town in Northeast Iowa: West Union, population 2,600. The largest employers are the two nursing homes, the lone high school and the city government. Yet, the average family in West Union makes almost $10,000 more than Muncie families. And we don't even have a Wal-Mart!
Luckily, I believe I have found the solution for McShurley. In the movie John Q, starring Denzel Washington, when John Archibald finds out that his son will die without a heart transplant, and that his insurance won't cover the cost, he takes a radical step: he holds the hospital's emergency room hostage until the doctors fix his son.
Therefore, if Mayor McShurley truly has the people of Muncie's best interests at hand, the plan of action is simple. She needs to take the five or six police and fire personnel she hasn't laid off yet, break into the Ball State University Administration Building, start screaming "I WILL NOT BURY MUNCIE! MUNCIE WILL BURY ME!," and hold President Jo Ann Gora hostage until the Indiana General Assembly writes Muncie a check for $3.8 million. This way, McShurley will be able to keep her campaign promise of "bringing in new investments" to the community, and Gora will not have to sit and watch the Muncie community dry up around Ball State.
It's as simple as that.
Matt Balk is an English graduate student and writes 'Balk on the Ball' for the Daily News. His views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper.
Write to Matt at mjbalk@bsu.edu
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