Board member Brad Fishburn, right, and president Jim Boone look over the 2025 salary ordinance at Turkey Creek Regional Sewer District’s Monday, Dec. 16 meeting. The board approved the ordinance and discussed their strategy for grant applications going forward. Photo by Lilli Dwyer.

By Lilli Dwyer
InkFreeNews

CROMWELL — The first order of business at the Turkey Creek Sewer board meeting Monday, Dec. 16, was approval of the wage and salary ordinance for 2025. The ordinance includes a 3% increase in pay for next year, which the council approved.

“That keeps up with the Social Security and inflation,” said board President Jim Boone.

In the engineering report, Jeff Hersha of Jones and Henry Engineers, stated he has started revising the board’s preliminary engineering reports for application for grant funding next year. The PER for both water and wastewater projects will be re-submitted.

In a meeting with board attorney Andy Boxberger and Lori Shipman of Shipman Consulting, who is providing consulting services on the grant application process, it was decided the next application to the State Revolving Fund should be more targeted at specific areas — namely, the Enchanted Hills area, which is considered a disadvantaged community in terms of grant funding.

“My understanding is there are also grant funds available for that, so we’re going to be restructuring, reorganizing the water PER specifically to pursue some of those monies. We are going to have to look at and probably break it out into separate reports so that the SRF funding is targeted at the beneficiaries, which would be the designated recipients of any improvements, so it is targeted only at the Enchanted Hills area,” Hersha explained.

He went on to say prioritization for SRF grant funding is based on data collection about the area — 80% of surveyed water customers must respond, and of those, 80% must fall below the monetary threshold for grant funding. Hersha suggested setting up a public meeting with the residents of Enchanted Hills in January to get the word out about planned water improvements.

“Just say it’s imperative that everybody show up to this meeting if you want better water, and that will help tremendously,” said Boone.

The board considered the Enchanted Hills Community Building as a location for a public meeting. No date has been set yet.

“We’ll probably be adding projects that weren’t targeted in the previous PER just because it’s that go big or go home mentality. You may not receive all the funding you want, but I figure it’s better to ask big and do the best with what you receive,” Hersha added.

Superintendent Tim Woodward reported the plant needed a new electric motor for one of its clarifiers, which was purchased and installed for about $420. Two block heaters were also replaced, and a circuit board in one of the plant’s transfer switches.

Lastly, he stated he applied for the Alliance of Indiana Rural Water’s apprenticeship program and was approved. The district has received $8,000 and a laptop for the training of a new employee, who is set to start work Jan. 1, 2025.

The next Turkey Creek Sewer board meeting will be at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 20.