By David Fenker
david@nmpaper.com
WABASH COUNTY- Due to a clerical error, Wabash County’s cumulative capital development fund will not be re-established until next year.
County Auditor Marcie Shepherd informed the commissioners of the delay at their May 14 meeting.
“I wanted to inform you that the CCD fund, the cumulative capital development fund, that you were trying to re-establish has been denied by the DLGF – the Department of Local Government Finance – due to the Wabash Plain Dealer not properly advertising it as requested,” she said.
Shepherd said that a Plain Dealer representative told her that the company is short-handed, and that she was not informed of the issue until the day after the advertisement was supposed to run.
“[That delay] didn’t put us within our timeframe of one week apart,” she said, “so, we were denied because of that.
“[The] timeframe is over for that, so we will have to try again first thing at the beginning of the year if you so desire to re-establish it.”
The commissioners approved an ordinance re-establishing the cumulative capital development fund, which is used for building repairs and replacements, at their March 12 meeting.
“This is restoration of the tax rate that was established on June 17, 2002, and the cumulative capital development fund is the fund we use for planned building repairs and replacement,” commissioner Barry Epply said at that meeting.
By design, the tax rate for that fund decays over time. The March 12 ordinance brought the rate up to .0333 on each $100 of assessed valuation.
“It drops each year,” Shepherd said, “so … the state is kind of recommending everybody re-establish them to bring it up to where it needs to be.
“You have to re-establish it either every year or, they recommend every three years, you re-establish it.”
She added, “We’re at the bare minimum, can’t go any further.”
Shepherd noted that the information is due to DLGF by April 30, so the county will have to start over at the beginning of 2019 to try again next year.
Additional news from the meeting included the weekly jail report from Sheriff Bob Land and other jail updates.
Land reported that Wabash County Jail staffed booked inmate number 106 for the week as he left for the commissioners meeting, and that the county had an additional 36 inmates in Miami County, three in Blackford County, 10 in Elkhart County and one in Department of Corrections safe keep.
“Our average last week was 101,” he said. “We had 30 new book-ins, seven transports, our peak population was 106, [and] 74 of the 155 [total this week] are awaiting some sort of court disposition.”
He added that Miami County will not accept any new Wabash County inmates.
“We are out of space,” Land said. “We’re holding prisoners in the holding cell … right now. We’ll find out after court once again as to what we can do.”
Land also presented a bill for about $2,600 for repairs to the jail’s padded cell, and a $100 bill for door repairs.