By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — An unused portion of a grant for KEDCO and the county from OCRA was approved by the Kosciusko County Commissioners on Tuesday, Jan. 28, to be reallocated to Combined Community Services.

Olivia Nix, Michiana Area Council of Governments’ (MACOG) community development planner, told the commissioners, “MACOG has been coordinating with the county for a bit now on some program income funds from a previous grant award. The grant was originally for a Revolving Loan Fund (RLF), and then now what we’re here to discuss today is the proposed change of use for those specific program income funds.”

She said now that the RLF program is no longer operating, “We’re looking to identify an eligible use for the remaining amount.”

The amount is $52,073.85. However, Nix said, the money is still sitting in an account that is generating a small amount of interest – about $5 a month – until it’s officially transferred from the Kosciusko Economic Development Corporation (KEDCO) to the county.

The grant originally was through the Office of Community and Rural Affairs (OCRA) Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, which has specific eligibility requirements for their funds.

Nix said, “The one that we are closing for this change of use will be limited … the service that the change of use is for the Combined Community Services, and so the reason that it meets the limited clientele national objective is because those serve a specific population of low to moderate income.”

She said they’ve been working with CCS  to compile data to provide to OCRA to make sure they’re staying within OCRA’s requirements.

“For the specifics on the new change of use, it is going specifically to the food pantry services. So I have a kind of preliminary budget of how the lump sum of $52,000 amount would be broken up between food purchases, operating costs and non-food items. But I did want to clarify that the operating costs aren’t tied into personal hours of work, it’s just more the general operating fees of the food pantry. However, we understand that just transferring this $52,000 to Combined Community Services might be a bit overwhelming and convoluted as we try and make sure it’s spent on eligible items,” Nix said.

She said she’s worked with the county to propose an option of the county holding on to the money once it’s transferred from KEDCO to the county for approximately a year. CCS will provide invoices to the county to be reimbursed until the money is expended.

As part of the disbursement process, MACOG will continue to serve as the grant administrator, reviewing the invoices from CCS to make sure expenses are eligible. Nix said there are some additional questions they have that they’re looking to get additional guidance on from OCRA.

The county auditor’s office is also speaking with the State Board of Accounts on some last-minute guidance. MACOG is meeting with KEDCO CEO Peggy Friday on Wednesday, Jan. 29, to make sure the dollar figure is accurate.

After she finished, County Commissioner Cary Groninger told her the commissioners appreciated her coming in and the reallocation of funds could be really beneficial to the community. As the change of use for the funds was a public hearing, the public was given an opportunity to speak for or against it.

A question was asked for Nix to clarify where the funds were coming from.

She said, “Originally, in 2020, KEDCO was a subrecipient. They went in on a grant with the county and that was a Revolving Loan Fund. So KEDCO facilitated that program for some time, but in 2021 they de-obligated the rest of their grant award, and so then because of the nature of the Revolving Loan Fund, an interest-bearing account, that’s how program income is generated. But, program income can’t just be absorbed. It needs to still be deployed in an eligible way per OCRA’s requirements, so that’s where we’ve kind of been working the past few months. So this is from an original grant award in 2020, just program income from that.”

The commissioners unanimously approved the reallocation of funds as well as the execution of the subrecipient agreement in line with the change of use.

In other business, the commissioners:

• Approved a resolution to conduct a commissioners sale of tax sale certificates for properties that are severely delinquent in payment of property taxes, as presented by county attorney Ed Ormsby. One of the two properties is currently owned by CJR Holding LLC. It’s a half-acre property with a previous tax sale amount of $153,442.95. The second property is a 0.11-acre piece of real estate owned by Richard Young. Its previous tax sale amount was $90,433.19. SRI Inc. will conduct the commissioner tax certificate sale.
• Approved the new and revised Kosciusko County Emergency Operations Plan, as presented by Emergency Management Director Kip Shuter. It replaces the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan. “Its purpose is to provide the framework for the coordination of response and operations during large-scale, complex emergency or disaster before, during and after the disaster. It begins local, it stays local,” Shuter said.
• Approved Kosciusko County Health Department Administrator Bob Weaver’s request for his department to enter into a contract with Turner Valentine LLC for legal services for 2025.
• Approved the annual recertification for the Community Rating System that the county participates in through the Area Plan Commission, as requested by Area Plan Assistant Director Andrew Heltzel.
• Approved an ordinance from the Kosciusko County Highway Department for a stop sign at the intersection of Harvest Ridge Lane and CR 175E in the Harvest Ridge subdivision. Troy Kintzel, KCHD, said, “This is just more or less cleaning up paperwork for the stop sign that we have there, to put an ordinance with that stop sign.”
• Reviewed the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office end-of-year commissary report for July to December 2024.
• Approved both rezonings presented by Area Plan Director Matt Sandy, which were recommended for approval by the Area Plan Commission. Both were to rezone property from Agriculture to Agriculture 2. The first request was from Evan and Janet Kreps for roughly seven acres at the corner of CR 1100N and CR 450E, Syracuse. The second request was from Brad Showalter for six acres on the west side of CR 550E, north of CR 800N, Syracuse.
• Announced their next meeting is at 9 a.m. Feb. 11 in the old courtroom of the old county courthouse.