Huntingburg Council: City expands funding options for street repairs

Huntingburg Mayor Denny Spinner was happy to introduce the most recent step the city has taken to utilize technology to save time and money for the city. The council broke out their new 2-in-1 computers for the first time at Tuesday's council meeting. More details in the story.
Huntingburg Mayor Denny Spinner was happy to introduce the most recent step the city has taken to utilize technology to save time and money for the city. The council broke out their new 2-in-1 computers for the first time at Tuesday’s council meeting. More details in the story.

The City of Huntingburg has worked with the state to create a way to use its tax increment finance funds in conjunction with the Community Crossings grant money.

It doesn’t sound very interesting at face value but in the complicated process of financing street repairs, the city usually has two paths, the long road of saving money for years to pay for the construction or the expensive road of bonding for the project.

In Huntingburg’s case, the city has been planning on repairing streets that service two of its TIF districts and TIF funds have been accumulating to do so. When the recent Community Crossings grant became available through the state, the city was going to take advantage of it to complete the work but TIF funds were not named as a source for the matching funds in the grant program.

So someone posed the question as to whether the city could use its existing TIF funds as part of the required matching grant.

“They said that any funds that have traditionally been used for road funding could be used as a match,” Mayor Denny Spinner said. “So we submitted the question to the State Board of Accounts and they said based on their review, they would not question the use of those funds if we used this process.”

Originally, the state had said only certain funds could be used to match the Community Crossings grant funds. Those funds included rainy day funds and local option income tax funds just released by the state through Senate Bill 67. The City of Huntingburg has about $480,000 available in these LOIT funds.

By law, TIF funds can’t be moved from the redevelopment commission to the rainy day fund but according to the state board of accounts, in this case, the city can create a line item in the rainy day fund that is only funded if they are awarded the grant.

With two of the proposed projects directly — County Road 400W and 11th Street from Chestnut Street to U.S. 231 — servicing TIF areas, using the TIF funds is allowed and will give the city more leeway in how they can use the LOIT funds it received through SB 67.

To ensure the process was complete in regards to the streets being impacted, the Huntingburg Redevelopment Commission approved an amendment to its asset management plan for all four of Huntingburg’s TIF areas that allowed funding to come from TIF. Then, the Huntingburg Planning Commission approved it as being within the scope of the city’s economic development plan.

On Tuesday, the council ratified the planning commission’s decision, approved the use of the TIF funds and the creation of the special Rainy Day Restricted TIF Allocation Fund 265.

The new source of funding allows the city to continue the plan to repair the streets in the TIF districts without using the LOIT funds and still take advantage of the Community Crossings grants.

“As far as I know we are the first city to do that,” Spinner said.

Also in the meeting, the council was slightly slow in getting started as they booted up and signed into their new Dell 2-in-1 tablet/laptops.

In efforts to reduce redundancy and cut back on paper, printer and labor costs to create agendas and the necessary paperwork to run the city, the city purchased the computers and an annual subscription to BoardPaq — special cloud-based services designed for operating meetings. The five council members, clerk-treasurer, three utility service board members, and the city attorney were all issued the new devices.

The computers run the software that holds the agenda items as well as all the necessary ordinance, resolution and contract paperwork the council and utility service board will need to complete their meetings.

Historically, before meetings, city staff would create the council members’ packets that included all the items they would need to review in order to make their decisions. It was expensive and time consuming.

For example, a contract with PSCI that was approved during Tuesday’s meeting was about 17 pages long. Normally, it would be printed out 10 times (170 sheets of paper). Not too bad if that was the only item on the agenda, however, they regularly review multiple ordinances, resolutions and contracts at each meeting.

Additionally, if there is an amendment to any of those items, the affected documents are reprinted for the decision-making body.

The software allows amendments to those papers to be automatically updated on each device. Also, the electronic files are stored and easily searchable. If someone wants to see when a certain ordinance was passed, it is easily accomplished through the service.

According to Spinner, he had seen recommendations from other cities in the state who had went to nearly-paperless (it’s hard to completely cut paper out of bureaucracy) meetings. “It is a cost-efficient way to do things,” he explained.

The 10 computers were purchased through the city’s annual computer and technology upgrade fund for les than $500 each and the software is an annual subscription of $100 per computer.

The council also took the following actions:

-Passed a resolution adopting a Title VI Plan and Non-Discrimination Agreement that was necessary to continue to receive funding for the city’s transit services.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects people from discrimination based on race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance. In 2014, President Obama signed Executive Order 13762 requiring a nondiscrimination agreement be adopted for any municipality or government body receiving federal dollars. The executive order also expanded the protections based on sex, sexual orientation and gender identity.

When first introduced in June, the resolution was not passed as only three council members were present at the meeting. The vote to proceed with approval on the night it was introduced failed in a vote of 2 to 1 with Councilman Steve McPherron the nay vote.

Huntingburg Council divided over discrimination clause in resolution

Afterwards, Mayor Spinner wrote a letter to local papers urging the council to approve the resolution unanimously stating, “I am calling on our council to pass the resolution unanimously to demonstrate our city’s commitment to not only uphold the laws of our nation, but to demonstrate we truly are an inclusive city that respects and values all of our citizens.”

Tuesday, the resolution was passed unanimously with no discussion.

11222159_445444675656222_3406228747562814713_o-Heard an update on the rollout of High Speed Huntingburg — the installation of fiber optic cable throughout the city to provide 100 megabit connectivity to every home and business through PSCI. According to Dave Buse, Sales Manager at PSCI, the company has completed build-out plans and have forwarded them to a contractor to complete the installation. Contingent on the contractor’s bid to complete the work, the project should begin in late fall of 2016.

Work will begin in the downtown area and the Hunters Crossing development. Hunters Crossing is a new housing development being completed by Boxer Girl LLC and it will be easier for the installation of the fiber to occur as other utilities are being added to the new construction.

According to Buse, it will take two to three years to complete the city-wide network at about $3 million.

PSCI will also move an office onto Fourth Street when construction starts.

-Approved a contract for services from PSCI for connectivity between the 10 city building locations in the city for $1,950 monthly.

-Approved the water department seeking quotes on a new service truck.

-Approved the purchase of a new transformer from Cape Electrical Supply for $6,810 for the 19th Street lift station. They were the lowest bidder on the transformer.

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One Comment

  1. The state – State Board of Accounts – is the weird one, or aspect of this. One way, rule, answer, etc. one day and another the next. Hard to figure. I’m sure the more and better a city is in good standing – is recognized for their reputation in ways of compliance, audits, and other such state-involved oversight but not to exclude certain “Stellar” attributes – the more apt they are to be given leeway and flexibility. And maybe that’s nothing new and always should be.

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