EDIT action nears

Preparations are being made to rewrite the county's Economic Development Income Tax plan for the next seven years.

"Part of this plan is to go out into each of the individual communities and get input," said Bill Bradley, director of Jay County Development Corporation and chairman of the county advisory committee.

Bradley said the information gathering will allow him to see if there have been any attitude changes on how to use EDIT funds.

Although the state legislature has "opened the floodgates" on how those funds can be used, the county has practiced a position of only using them for projects directly related to development.

Committee members shared their thoughts on how EDIT should be used going forward.

Board members suggested that EDIT funds be used for projects that can't obtain other funding, for job growth or job creation, to support workforce development, as leverage to obtain major grants, and as incentive in the form of grants or low-interest loans to help bring new business, among others.

After hearing input from board members, Bradley said the suggestions are mostly in line with the county's current plan.

"Really I'm not sensing, to be brutally honest, a lot of change from seven, eight years ago," he said. "... I think we're pretty much on the same track we've been before."

Counties which have adopted EDIT must vote on whether to renew the tax every seven years.

Bradley acknowledged the county has made some poor decisions in the past while using EDIT funds, but that the process has improved because of those past errors. The current procedures are and future plans will be stronger because of it.

"There have been moments when we've probably not used it well," he said.

"We've learned some lessons and that's critical," Bradley added.

Bradley will be meeting with members from each of the county's six cities and towns to discuss their vision for EDIT and expects a draft of the new plan should be ready in the next six to eight weeks.

In other business, board member Chuck Huffman questioned the recent move by the Jay County Council to eliminate the EDIT rainy day fund and move it into the county's general rainy day fund. The move was suggested at this month's council meeting by the county's financial adviser Greg Guerrettaz as a bookkeeping procedure.

Board member and Jay County Auditor Nancy Culy said the state requires the county to put additional funds into a rainy day account and that the specific line item for an EDIT rainy day was unnecessary.

Huffman expressed concern that those monies collected through EDIT are now being rolled in with the rest of the county's tax funds.

Board member and county council president Gerald Kirby suggested that Culy could communicate with JCDC how much rainy day money comes from EDIT so that statistic would be available in the future if the committee needed to request rainy day funds from the council.[[In-content Ad]]