There was a lot of confusion towards the end of a four hour long city council meeting this month. The issues began when city councilwoman Martha Crossen expressed concerns about a proposed $2.4 million expenditure of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds being spent for police and fire radios.

Approximately three hours and five minutes into the meeting Crossen told Mayor Duke Bennett, “As you know I’m not happy about using ARPA funds to pay for what I consider to be operating expenses for the city.”

Crossen voted to not take action on the appropriation for the funds, but after a misunderstanding and some confusion to parliamentary procedures, Crossen rescinded her vote and the expenditures were eventually approved.

The confusion revolved around whether or not Crossen could change her vote. City Clerk, Michelle Edwards, advised the members that council president Curtis Debaun had not hit his gavel. However, video recordings of the meeting posted online show that Debaun did hit his gavel closing the vote.

This was not the first time city council members have shown frustration with the Mayor’s proposals to spend ARPA funds. 

Back in May, Councilman Earl Elliot had also expressed concerns with how decisions were made to purchase the radios. It was revealed in a special meeting that the city had already made the purchase and was seeking approval from the council to reimburse the expenses using ARPA funds.

In a heated exchange with the mayor Elliot asked, “Um, mayor, if ARPA funds were not available to pay for these, how would we have paid for them?”

Bennett: “We would have just kept the loan.”

Elliot: “Well sooner or later you have to repay a loan.”

Bennett: “Yeah, we have money to do that?”

Elliot: “Out of what fund?”

Bennett: “Out of the funds that we have principle and interest payments out of…”

Elliot: “Okay, so we don’t really know.” 

This is not the first time concerns have been raised about the city using funds meant for other purposes, to cover operating expenses. Back in 2014 Cliff Lambert, former director of the Terre Haute Department of Redevelopment, publicly criticized the mayor for withdrawing $3.4 million dollars from Redevelopment accounts. 

Although the city claims it is no longer directly withdrawing money from those accounts, they are still using Redevelopment funds in the form of TIF revenue to pay for $15.3 million dollars of outstanding principal and interest on bonds used to purchase and renovate the new police station, and bond payments for design work on a new police station that was never constructed.

TIF revenues are generated by setting aside increases in property tax collections from designated districts. They’ve become a controversial form of government spending as they were originally meant to help communities alleviate blighted neighborhoods, but are now commonly used to provide incentives for corporations and real estate developments.

During the 2023 legislative session representative Bob Cherry introduced House Bill 1085 which would have allowed 20% of TIF revenues to pass through to local school corporations, and would have required one redevelopment commission board member to also be a school board member. However, the bill did not receive a third reading in the House of Representatives.  

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