Merrillville won’t be getting its own standalone Boys & Girls Club after the Town Council, which voted previously to provide funding toward it, tanked that same funding plan at its Tuesday night meeting over a misunderstanding of how Tax Increment Financing districts work.
Council President Rick Bella, D-5, Council Vice President Rhonda Neal, D-1, and Councilman Shawn Pettit, D-6, voted for the ordinance. Councilwomen Shauna Haynes-Edwards, D-2, and Leona Chandler-Felton, D-3, voted against it, while Councilwoman Marge Uzelac, D-4, abstained, so the motion failed. Councilwoman Keesha Hardaway, D-7, was absent.
The council in June voted for the ordinance that would allow the town to issue the Boys & Girls Club $2 million in economic development bonds over 10 years for the organization to build a standalone club on three acres it purchased from the town on the southwest side of the Dean and Barbara White Community Center. That bond issue, as well as a $1 million bond issue for an access road off 61st Avenue into Andrean High School that the council did approve on both readings, would be paid out of the town’s TIF districts that currently have $9.1 million in them.
Boys & Girls Club of Greater Northwest Indiana President and CEO Mike Jessen told the council that while it greatly appreciates the space in the community center, it’s not able to serve as many kids as it has even when it used space in one of the Merrillville Schools.
“We’re only serving 20 to 30 kids a day (at the community center); with a purpose-built club, we can serve 100 to 150 kids per day. We know the demand is out there,” Jessen said. “(The Boys & Girls Clubs of NWI) exist to prove that every kid has what it takes, and we all know that there’s no more difficult time to be a kid or a parent today. We owe this to them.”
Clerk-Treasurer Eric January said the town can’t afford to “give gifts” to everyone who asks for them.
“Ultimately, what decisions are being made cumulatively through the town — Andrean $1 million, potentially the Boys & Girls Club $2 million — that ultimately, that does have an impact on our budget, and it’s a negative impact, and it will force more of us to bear the burden of the taxes,” January said. “I own property on Broadway, and my taxes are going to be $15,000 a year, and I pay $5,000 for my homeowners. I’m not an advocate for taking even a dollar of someone else’s money to pay for someone else that’s not paying any taxes. I just think that’s unjust enrichment and that the government is a charity.
“If you want charity, go to Impact Church.”
Bob Swintz, a consultant with London Witte Group, explained once again that TIF Districts are a separate allocation and that they’re paid for by businesses within the district, so residents don’t pay into them at all, to which January said that at the end of the day, it’s still tax money that the town would get if there wasn’t a TIF, which in turn would lower everyone’s property taxes.
“They’re basically freeloading,” January said.
Town Manager Michael Griffin, who was Highland’s Clerk-Treasurer for 32 years and who teaches government finance, said January’s assertion was “not true.”
“If the allocation went away, there’s no new money. It doesn’t generate anything,” he said, adding that an argument might’ve been made before 2019, after which the Indiana General Assembly tweaked the rules governing TIF Districts to avoid disparities.
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Pettit added that if and when a TIF district is dissolved, the town will see only 15% of the money since it would be divided among all the town’s taxing districts.
The Boys & Girls Club, meanwhile, will “have to take a look” at other options, Jessen said.
“It’s clearly unfortunate for the kids,” a disappointed Jessen said after the meeting. “We’ll have to see if there’s an option with the schools, which is far less ideal.”
Had Merrillville voted for the ordinance, the Boys & Girls Club would’ve used it to leverage the funding it needs to complete the building, Jessen said.
Also at the meeting, while the council voted unanimously for the Andrean bond issue ordinance to go through, January said he’s awaiting a response from the Indiana Attorney General’s office to see if the ordinance is legal since Andrean is a parochial school. The state’s TIF language allows municipalities to give public entities money directly, while not-for-profits are allowed the money through bond issues, the Post-Tribune previously reported.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.