Shown is the graph on the county’s tax increment financing districts that was presented to the Kosciusko County Commissioners at their meeting Tuesday and will be presented to the Kosciusko County Council at their meeting Thursday. Graph Provided By Kosciusko County Redevelopment Commission.

By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — An annual report on the Kosciusko County Redevelopment Commission and a quarterly update on the Hoosier Enduring Legacy Program were given to the County Commissioners at its meeting Tuesday, April 9.

The same reports will be provided to the County Council at their meeting Thursday evening.

Joni Truex, county councilwoman who serves as president on the Redevelopment Commission, said the annual report is required by House Bill 105. It requires the Redevelopment Commission to give an annual report to the commissioners and the council once a year by April 15 on “everything that has happened within the Redevelopment Commission TIFs (tax increment financing districts) that have been established that are authorized by and through Kosciusko County.”

Her report included only county TIFs.

A graph provided to the commissioners listed the TIF districts and their gross, net, base and incremental assessed values. It included the revenue dollars the county received, as well as the expenses paid out and the balances in those accounts.

“Now there is also two that have bonds with debt that have been – bonds have been issued and debt is owed,” Truex said.

One is the Louis Dreyfus bond that has a bond debt owed of $1.665 million, but they paid $475,000 and the expected pay-off date is 2026. The other one that has an outstanding bond is Trupointe and Trupointe Extended. Their bond is $1,608,461 and they paid $117,358, with the bond expected to be paid off in 2037.

“This also gives you the TIF creation dates, so you know exactly when they were created, and when they are set to expire,” Truex said.

The one set to expire first is the Van Buren (Maple Leaf) TIF on Jan. 1, 2026.

There are two TIF districts that have had absolutely no activity, no income and no assessed value. Both were officially established Jan. 3, 2023, and include South Shore Residential, south of Syracuse, and South Etna Green Residential.

“As you probably are aware, Etna Green has put a hold on doing anything at this point with their residential TIF, but we are keeping that open per KEDCO’s input because they could come back and revisit that at some point and decide that they want to do that,” Truex said, adding that it’s not causing any problems or costing anything.

She said there’s hopefully some movement on South Shore but she guessed it’ll probably be at least two years before “there’s ever any numbers in there. That’s just an estimate.”

There were no questions on the report from the commissioners and no action was taken as the report was for informational purposes only.

Amy Roe, the county’s community coordinator, gave her first quarterly update to the commissioners on HELP. She also will give the update to the County Council at their regular meeting Thursday evening.

“So I am going to start presenting related to the work I’m doing, every quarter. This is my first presentation,” she said.

She had provided the commissioners with a four-page handout, with the first page being about the specific projects or programs that were instituted based on the H.E.L.P.

“So if you remember that $1 million match has actually created about 15 different initiatives, so I feel like that’s a pretty good investment for the money put into the program. I had a conversation with OCRA (Office of Community and Rural Affairs) and they were very excited that there were this many initiatives. Usually with the HELP, there was only either one or two programs or projects that were able to be accomplished or instituted because of that money,” Roe said.

Some of the programs or projects listed on the sheet include the county blueway and greenway trail plan, the Chinworth Bridge trail extension, the Sidney broadband project, Milford water meters, Mentone park improvements, We Lead Kosciusko and more.
Commissioner Cary Groninger stated, “I think these are great. It’s great to see some of these ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) projects that the county is doing, moving along and planning and preparing for construction soon, I hope. As well as the other three projects, the monies that we were able to get from OCRA, being able to get those out to Mentone, Milford and Pierceton and seeing those projects coming along nicely, too. It’s great to see we’re able to make progress.”

Roe said the next deadline for the planning is June 21 when another application to OCRA is due.

On page two of her handout, she had a breakdown of additional projects that either Groninger or other community members from the local units of government that Roe works with had asked her to participate in. For the fourth quarter of 2023, when Roe went full-time as community coordinator, there are nine listed. For the first quarter of 2024, there are a dozen.

Groninger told Roe he was “super impressed” with her ability to build relationships with many of the small towns in the county. He’s still getting a lot of positive feedback from them.

“I think the relationships that we build between the county and the small communities in our county is key to what’s going to really take us to the next level as a county,” he said. “A lot of these small towns haven’t had the capacity or know where to get the resources to be able to move a project forward, so I think your ability to help point them in the right direction and connect the dots with the people they need to is really going to be key to seeing continued success.”

The last two pages of her report were graphs that showed completion of the stages of the projects.

Groninger did clarify that Roe was helping existing organizations navigate through the process. “It’s not like we’re creating more programs that the county is somehow funding. You’re just helping navigating through and allowing them to connect the dots and really help so these programs get the right connections they need to move forward,” he said.

Roe said her next quarterly report will be in August.