Update on SB 188 and Its Applicability to Marion County

Last week I noted some of the exciting changes the Legislature enacted through SB 118.  Well, an alert reader gave me a heads up that the bill did not apply to Marion County insofar as giving the City-County Council the authority to review the annual budget of the Metropolitan Development Commission.   I dug down into the Indian Code and verified that the alert reader was in fact correct and my previous depiction was incorrect.

I will go back and edit the old entry.  Not wanting to leave a false impression with those of you who read that entry already, I am going to recap the highlights and note whether the item applies to all of Indiana's redevelopment commissions, or to all but the MDC and Marion County.

1) Establishment of a sunset date for all old TIFs that do not now have an expiration date:  As noted, the consolidated downtown TIF is the only set of old TIFs in Indiana that will not have to have a sunset date created.  The date sunset date for the rest will be the later of June 30, 2025, or the last scheduled payment of outstanding bonds secured with that TIFs revenue.

2) Marion County will be the only County where the legislative body will not review the budget of that County's redevelopment commission (assuming any particular County has one).

3) In all Counties except Marion, the legislative body will review all property purchases either over 3 years in term or $5 M in cost.  Our City-County Council gets to review the property purchases of the MDC if the repayment of the debt for the purchase takes more than 5 years.

4) The MDC already must have the approval of the City-County Council in order to issue bonds.  While the Code does not specify that the Council can make changes to the term, interest rate, provision for early payment or collateralized interest, the Council certainly can withhold its approval for any of those reasons.  The other Counties get this legislative approval requirement placed on the issuance of bonds by their redevelopment commissions.

5) All County's legislative bodies get to approve, and adjust if it suits them, the annual determination of how much TIF increment will pass through to the other taxing units, once the expected revenue exceeds twice what is required to make the schedule debt payments and cover expected pay as you go projects for the coming year.

6) All Counties' redevelopment commissions, including the MDC, will have to show that any new tax revenues generated by the creation of a new TIF or expansion of an old TIF, would not have been generated except for the creation or expansion of the TIF.  It cannot be a simple claim; there must be supporting evidence.

So, the busy lobbyists for Mayor Ballard/Vaughn kept some of the changes from impacting their coveted slush funds.  Luckily for us, there still are important changes coming to Marion County, as well as the rest of Indiana's Counties.