The Marshall County Commissioners and Council members were alerted of a few different ways they could potentially fund the Jail expansion project when a joint session was held at the end of November.
As was noted previously, Baker Tilly Director Heidi Amspaugh outlined four different options for funding the project with a combination of bonds and cash available through the County’s Special Purpose Local Income Tax Fund.
That special purpose LIT fund was specifically dedicated to help pay off the existing Jail bonds and was put in place during the initial project through a legislative order.
The first two financial options, assumed the size of the project would be reduced to around $17 million while the last two included the preliminary estimate for what it would cost to fund the entire project which is more than $19 million.
With the fully funded project, Amspaugh mentioned that the price to cover operations would increase significantly. To offset that cost, the financial advisers created scenarios where an additional revenue source would be incorporated.
She highlighted the possibility of a .1 percent correctional facility local income tax being implemented to create that funding and proceeded to explain the impact of that proposal.
She explained, “Your Local Income Tax has different components of it so your CAGIT (County Adjusted Gross Income Tax) Rate, which is your certified shares which funds a majority of your General Fund in your budget, is a 1 percent rate.”
She continued, “Your Special Jail LIT component of your LIT rate is .25 right now. Total your LIT rate is 1.25 so if you would add a .1 rate for the correctional facilities component of the LIT rate then, yeah, it would be bumped up.”
County Councilman Jim Masterson broke that down even further with a specific example.
He noted, “Basing that upon a $1,000 a week salary, you’re only going to increase that $1 off of a check, so that’s what I wanted clarified.”
Since some more solid figures related to project costs are still expected to come in as the design phase progresses, officials didn’t want to commit themselves to a particular dollar amount or funding option just yet.
However, because both entities were supportive of moving forward with the project in general, Amspaugh suggested that they could get the bond process started by setting up some limits preliminarily.
Council President Judy Stone added, “So it would go from 1.25 to 1.35 which would amount to $1 a week on a $1,000 a week salary?” Masterson replied affirmatively.
She noted that unlike with the scenarios that were presented, the limits would not incorporate cash-on-hand.
She stated, “With the maximum financial perimeters we would recommend that you would assume no cash in to make sure you’re at a maximum where you don’t have to come back through the legal process again so the maximums could be quite a bit higher than where we actually end up.”
It was noted that even after those maximums are set, less bonds can always be issued and there would be no need to take any other official actions because the phrase ‘not to exceed’ would be included in the initial language.
While nothing related to finances was decided during the informational joint session, a bond ordinance is expected to come before the County Council during their next meeting on Monday, December 9th.
Information from the joint session will be highlighted during this week’s Maximum Impact program which will air on Sunday at noon on MAX 98.3 FM
