CROTHERSVILLE
Crothersville residents already have been impacted by a sewer rate increase this year.
They also would have faced an increase in their annual property tax rate if the town re-established a cumulative capital development fund.
During a meeting Tuesday night, the Crothersville Town Council unanimously agreed it’s not the right time to get that fund going again.
"In the last meeting, I hadn’t really thought about it," council President Danieta Foster said. "Over the last month, I’ve thought about it a lot, and an increase of $24,000 that can be used for any legal purposes sounds real good right now, but we just raised sewer rates 59%. I just don’t think it’s the time. I think we should relook at it next year. Right now, in my opinion, I don’t think it’s a good idea."
If the town was desperate for money, she said that would be one thing, but it’s not.
"We’re OK. We’re good," Foster said.
She made those statements during a public hearing at the start of the meeting. Comments from the public on the live feed on the town’s Facebook page included "Yes, not time," "I agree. Too many increases," "It’s a horrible idea — horrible" and "It’s not the time."
Later in the meeting, the council considered approval of an ordinance to establish the fund. That’s when members unanimously agreed to hold off on that for this year.
A cumulative capital development fund could have helped Crothersville officials with purchases related to infrastructure, vehicles and equipment.
During the Feb. 2 meeting, Reuben Cummings with GFC Consultants LLC spoke to the town council to see if there was interest in getting that going again.
If it would have been approved, the property tax rate would have increased up to 5 cents for every $100 of assessed valuation.
The current rate is 0.0136, which means 2021 revenue would have been approximately $9,000 in the cumulative capital development fund — $8,435 in property taxes and the remainder in miscellaneous revenues. The maximum rate for a municipality is 0.05.
If the council would have adopted the maximum rate based on the current assessed valuation of more than $62 million, the revenue would have gone to $33,091.
The property tax rate for a $100,000 homestead would have increased by $11 a year, and the same value commercial property would have increased by $32 a year.
Starting in February, Crothersville Utilities customers saw a 59.9% increase in the sewage works rate on their monthly bill.
On the monthly use breakdown, the increase ranges from $14.57 for 1,000 gallons to $73.66 for 12,000 gallons. The average monthly usage in Crothersville is around 2,500 gallons.
The purpose of the increase is for the town to be able to pay the debt service on a $6,512,000 sewage project, which is required by the state for the town to become compliant with discharge permits with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.
In 2008, the town was put under an agreed order to take steps to make changes and improvements to the town’s wastewater system.
Crothersville is the smallest of the 109 combined sewer overflow communities in Indiana that are being ordered by IDEM and the Environmental Protection Agency to upgrade its wastewater system to eliminate CSO.
The agreed order expired at the end of 2020. The town could have presented a petition to amend the agreed order to an administrative law judge and get a new schedule in place, but that could have resulted in fines, penalties and a possible takeover of the town’s utilities with an increase in rates and charges.
The work includes building a new wet weather overflow main, installing an in-line hydrodynamic stormwater separator, constructing a duplex wet weather pumping station and force main, modifying existing plant surge basins with concrete wall cores and many other key improvements.
The project has to have substantial completion by May 2022 and final completion by June 2022.