While more that 30 Marshall County residents spoke during Tuesday night’s special County Council meeting, only one needed more time than the allotted 3 minutes. State Representative Tim Harman was given a couple extra minutes but knew he still wouldn’t have enough time to explain in detail so he told those in attendance, “on Thursday, June 9th I’m going to be meeting at the library and the public is invited and I’d like all the local officials to come too because I’ve sort of been voicing my concerns about the wheel tax and CEDIT and I just haven’t had an opportunity to explain my self.” He noted that the meeting could take as long as 2 hours.
Representative Harman wants to detail his side of the issue and explain how he thinks Marshall County can handle their road issues without creating a new tax.
He did admit that money needs to be spent on roads to fix and maintain them and said, “I’m telling you we can do this without a tax increase.”
He detailed the funds he believes are available to assist Marshall County with roads. Earlier this year Harman said the county, conceivably had $7.3 million available, but Tuesday night said it’s almost $14 million. Explaining the numbers: $3.3 in Rainy Day, $1.1 LOIT refund, $1.4 US 31 relinquishment funds, budgeted highway funds for 2016 was $850,000.00, excess funds of $850,000 collected on the special jail CAGIT, the highway account started the year with $2 million cash balance, $1.3 in Certified Shares, Cum Cap Development has 900,000 along with the cum bridge fund which also has $900,000 and excess reserves of $1.5 million. He did note that this is short term money. Harman also said he didn’t believe they should spend all of the money.
When asked by County Council President Judy Stone if state statue would allow the county to spend all the $14.1 million to spend it….he said, “Yes, I checked with the DLGF today and there is no requirement that you keep a reserve balance.” She also asked if he was inclined to spent the entire $3.3 million of rainy day funds and he said, “No actually if you want to spend $5 million I’ve got a way for you to spend $5 million…I’m just saying there is money available.”
Harman clarified his position on the special Jail CAGIT funds, using those dollars to fund as much of the jail expense as possible, thus freeing up $745,000 in the general fund for roads.
He closed by saying we need to work collaboratively by giving more flexibility of moving money between political subdivisions and across the county.
