By JONATHAN SNYDER
Funding for updates to the Wells County Pool is a priority for the Common Council for 2025, they announced during budget meetings.
During budget meetings, Parks Department Superintendent Brandy Fiechter stated that the pool is over 50 years old and conversations need to start to happen before the pool becomes a total loss. The plan is to use grant money from the Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative, which offers a 20% match for 80% of local funds.
The cost of the pool improvements is estimated at $6.5 million, calculated by Council member Scott Mentzer. Council member Chandler Gerber posed the idea of corporate sponsorship and fundraising efforts to help ease the financial burden, and the council agreed.
Mentzer’s financial breakdown, with no public fundraising, would demand the city pay $5.2 million for the pool; $1.65 million would come from cash reserves from the general fund and the County Development Economic Income Tax fund.
The rest of the money would come from the Adams Tax Increment Financing district, which includes properties along Harvest Road. The district is set up so that any property tax dollars that the city collects stay within that district. Mentzer stated that typically these districts are used for business incentives and works like a tax abatement.
TIF district rules, according to the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance, state that these funds must benefit the public health, safety, morals and welfare of the city; increase the economic well-being of the unit and the state; and serve to protect and increase property values in the unit and the state, according to the department’s website.
“At the time of creation the existing property tax in the TIF is captured and set as a baseline,” Mentzer said. “Any incremental assessed value inside that TIF district that grows over time, the property tax of that increment stays in the TIF district.”
Council member Josh Hunt stated that while the pool is a necessary good that the city provides, there needs to be some form of public input to justify that level of spending. Hunt and Gerber both stated that a goal should be to raise $1 million and ensure the READI grant is awarded before spending that level of money.
Mentzer also announced that the Parks and Street Department’s budgets were each at an approximately $80,000 deficit. While the final numbers for the budget are still being tweaked, one way that the council will balance the books is by moving a police officer’s salary out of the general fund to the Public Safety Local Income Tax fund and using the savings to help cover those expenses.
Other improvements that the council wants to see from its spending include continuing to search for Community Crossings Matching Grants for road improvements, starting a program for sidewalk replacement, and setting aside money for regular department vehicle replacement and a police/fire building renovation.
Community Crossings grants will have a maximum $1.5 million matching award the city could receive.
Additionally, Gerber proposed a cumulative fund for sidewalk replacement in the Street Department’s budget. Although the city has a sidewalk program where citizens can replace their sidewalks with some funding from the city, Gerber proposed that the city begin scheduling sidewalks that need to be replaced. The council seemed agreeable to Gerber’s notion, with CEDIT fund money potentially being used for the initiative.
jonathan@news-banner.com
