By Larry Riley, Ball State University Professor, in the Muncie Star Press:
The Delaware County Council gamely soldiers forward despite revenues in a precarious position, yesterday approving the borrowing of millions of dollars via bond issuance.
The majority was for Bell Aquaculture LLC to expand from the production of 3 million yellow perch annually to 8.5 million.
That bond carries zero liability for the county's taxpayers. Bell is solely on the, um, hook. The county's action simply allows the bonds to be sold as tax-exempt instruments.
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But another $3.2 million in bonding for improvements at Park One industrial park at
I-69 and Ind. 332 did raise some eyebrows, and discussion. The bonds include a clause that should the Tax Increment Financing district in the park fail to raise enough revenues, a special tax on the unincorporated areas of Delaware County will be enacted to do so.
County consultants assured -- well, maybe "assured" isn't the right word -- council members that the clause is a "marketing tool" to make the bonds more attractive to banks, though they also admitted without the clause, the bonds would be "impossible" to sell.
The bonds will complete a railroad spur at the park, plus defray Yorktown's costs of extending a sewer line to the development.
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Another $2.2 million in bonding was sought by the county's Economic Development Alliance to help Brevini Wind, one of Park One's tenants, still struggling to produce products (wind turbines) and employ people in numbers (multiple hundreds, not the 70 or so now on board) originally envisioned.
But several council members said they hadn't seen any documents on that bonding. The documents had been electronically distributed by the auditor's office, but feelings from the prior discussion still were running sufficiently high that the matter was set aside for a future special meeting.
Council members did not, however, flinch from approving $870,282.35 -- where they'll get it, nobody knows -- for the county sheriff's merit deputy retirement fund.
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The county treasurer's property tax collections are ready for distribution, and treasurer John Dorer brought what he said would be bad news to council's finance committee last week.
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These collections are for all 47 taxing units (who needs more governmental consolidation?) in Delaware County, and while the figures have fallen each of the past four years, we're somewhat leveling off now that property tax caps are fully rolled in.
Tax collections in spring of 2009, 2010, and last year were $47 million, $46.1 million, and $45.2 million. You see the downward trending. This year the amount was $43.6 million, down again.
What's not known is how much of those collections represent both spring and fall tax bills. Many taxpayers pay their entire bill in May, rather than pay half now and half in November.
If history is a guide, the whole of Delaware County is on track to see $3.1 million less in total property tax revenues in 2012. Between 15 and 20 percent of that goes to county government.
http://www.thestarpress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012205230310
