From the South Bend Tribune:
St. Joseph County plans to spend $8.1 million on capital improvements, including new felony courtrooms, bond
payments, police radios and other items as
part of an annual spending bill now under
consideration by the County Council.
Introduced last month by the Board of Commissioners,
the bill, which passed out of committee
with a unanimous favorable recommendation,
represents the county's annual appropriation of county economic development income tax, or CEDIT,
money.
According to county Auditor
Pete Mullen, the county expects a CEDIT
settlement of about $8.7 million this year, on top of about $6.8 million left over from previous
years.
The CEDIT rate in the county
is 1 percent, up from 0.8 percent in 2009,
when the county and the city of South Bend elected to increase it to counter the effects of the poor economy and
Circuit Breaker Law on property tax
revenue.
The county managed to
build a surplus in its CEDIT account, Mullen said, by keeping a lid on spending over the past
several years.
The bill, which will
be considered by the County Council at its
meeting June 12, appropriates $1.5 million to renovate parts of the first and second floor of the County-City Building,
formerly the county jail, into four new,
ADA-compliant felony courtrooms.
...
The bill also appropriates
about $1.5 million to supplement the
county's annual paving program, $2.4 million to cover bond payments related to infrastructure work completed as part of
the AM General expansion and $1.1 million
for new police radios.
The police
radios are mandated as part of an effort to improve emergency communications in the
state.
Given that it faced no
opposition in committee, Kostielney said he expects the bill to pass out of the council without
issue, whereupon it would then move to the
Board of Commissioners for final approval.
The County Council next meets at 7 p.m. June 12 inside
council chambers on the fourth floor of
County-City Building, 227 W. Jefferson
Blvd.
http://www.southbendtribune.com/news/sbt-county-tax-funds-to-pay-for-new-courtrooms-20120603,0,7705407.story
