By VICKI URBANIK
Porter County will get its payment from the 75-year lease of the Indiana
Toll Road today, and plans are well underway for the county government to
use its share in a somewhat unusual way.
Rather than spend all the money at once, the county will invest its $14.3
million payment. It will also issue a bond for about $3 million that will
provide funds for road and other economic development projects, but the bond
payments will be paid off only by the interest earned through the
investment. Then in five years, when the bond retires, another bond issue
will be floated again.
The bond-investment plan was proposed by Porter County Council member Robert
Poparad, D-1st, who said that because the interest earnings will be higher
than the bond interest payments, the principal amount invested will increase
over time.
Poparad said that rather than a bond issue, he would prefer to see the money
invested and only the interest earnings spent. But, he noted that plan
wouldn’t tie up the principal as a bond will and could lead to a spending
frenzy by county officials.
During last month’s budget hearings, the other Porter County Council members
endorsed Poparad’s suggestion, and at Thursday’s final budget session,
council attorney David Hollenbeck said the bond work is proceeding without a
problem. Hollenbeck said he has been assured that state officials have no
problem with Porter County’s proposal.
In the meantime, the office of Gov. Mitch Daniels announced Thursday that he
will personally hand deliver the Toll Road lease payments to each of the
seven northern Indiana Toll Road counties. Daniels is expected to present
the check to Porter County early this afternoon.
In a statement Thursday, Daniels praised the Toll Road lease proceeds for
closing a $3 billion deficit in his transportation plan known as Major
Moves.
“Now, we have huge resources we never would have had, to generate jobs we’d
never have had a shot at,” Daniels said. “If the people of our Toll Road
counties use this once in a lifetime opportunity wisely, and we do the same
statewide, we will leave our kids a dramatically stronger Indiana, led by
these seven counties.”
Under the bill that state lawmakers passed this year that cleared the way
for Daniels’ plan to lease the Toll Road, the state received a lump sum
payment of $3.75 billion. In exchange, the Spanish Australian consortium
Macquarie/Cintra, known as the Indiana Toll Road Concession Company, will
operate the Toll Road and collect all tolls for the next three-quarters of a
century.
Under the law, all seven Indiana Toll Road counties will get a one-time
payment totaling $240 million, known as the “Major Moves Construction Fund,”
which by law must be used only on the construction of highways, roads and
bridges; economic development projects; matching funds for federal grants or
cooperative agreements for road and related projects; or, in the case of
Lake and Porter counties, the Northwest Indiana Regional Development
Authority.
Steuben, St. Joseph, LaPorte, LaGrange and Elkhart county will each get $40
million. Porter County will get a direct payment of $25 million and Lake
County, $15 million. The reason for the lower payments in Porter and Lake
counties is because the RDA will also get $40 million this year, half of
which must go to the Gary/Chicago International Airport.
LaPorte County’s direct payment also would have been cut to $25 million if
officials there decided to join the RDA. However, LaPorte County last week
decided not to join the RDA; the deadline for the decision was today.
The $25 million that will be presented today in Porter County will be
divvied up among the county government and all municipalities, as previously
announced in May.
The county government’s share will be 57.4 percent, or just under $14.4
million. Chesterton will get $1.3 million; Porter, $618,335; Burns Harbor,
$95,262; Dune Acres, $26,489; Valparaiso, $3.4 million; Portage, $4.1
million; Beverly Shores, $88,049; Hebron, $447,211; Kouts, $211,169; Ogden
Dunes, $163,289; and The Pines, $99,242.
Also under the Toll Road lease law, another $75 million will be distributed
to all counties and municipalities next month and again in October of next
year. Of those funds, known as the Major Moves Motor Vehicle Highway
distribution, Marion County will get the biggest chunk, with a total of $5.6
million going to Marion County and its municipalities including Indianapolis
this October and next. Lake County and all its municipalities will get a
total of $4.3 million, while Porter County and all its muncipalities will
get just under $1.4 million.
Hollenbeck announced that Daniels was expected to arrive in Valparaiso at 1
p.m. to hand deliver the check totaling $25 million. He joked that the
governor must not be aware of electronic transfer of checks, but Poparad was
a bit more cynical when he said: “It’s called a photo opportunity.”
Posted 9/15/2006
