Subscribe
Jobs
Cars
Real Estate
Apts
Classifieds
Shop
The new capital improvement board will seek tweaks to its governing law before it begins receiving millions of dollars for local projects.
Ben Campbell, president of the Allen County Fort Wayne Capital Improvement Board of Managers, said some small changes would help the board function better. The biggest is ensuring it gets all the money it was intended to use for local projects.
The board captures up to $3 million in local and state income and sales taxes from Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, Grand Wayne Center, Memorial Coliseum and the Holiday Inn across from the Coliseum.
The board must give $2.6 million to the Coliseum and will be left with up to $400,000 in revenue.
But an existing agreement with the Fort Wayne Redevelopment Commission requires all of that money to go to the commission to pay debt incurred to expand the convention center. That amount is currently between $170,000 and $200,000 annually.
Greg Leatherman, redevelopment executive director, said the city has not asked for the extra money and does not need it. If it were given to redevelopment, it would likely be used to pay down Grand Wayne’s debt faster, although legislators in creating the board have said they didn’t want the board’s revenues to be used for existing projects.
“We are not asking for additional funds,” Leatherman said. “We’re not in a shortfall.”
Campbell said he believed the law was intended for that money to be put aside by the capital board for future large projects, so it will be critical to get that issue determined before the first revenues are released next year.
“When there’s a revenue source, people are going to be in line,” he said.
The board will also get all excess food-and-beverage tax revenue not needed by Memorial Coliseum to pay down existing debt. That excess isn’t calculated until 2010 and doesn’t have to be given to the capital board until February 2011.
The law requires the excess money be put in a reserve account, which can’t move into a spending account for 12 months.
Campbell also said he would like board members’ terms to be extended from their current two years and staggered so there is always some experience on the board.
Such changes would be discussed with Mayor Tom Henry and the Allen County commissioners – who appoint the board – before they are taken to the state.
In other business, the board approved the $4.8 million budget for the convention center and the $1.2 million budget for the Fort Wayne-Allen County Convention & Visitors Bureau.
The convention center budget will go before the City Council in December.
