Pia O’Connor
About $1 million of federal COVID-19 relief funds will be invested to provide matching funds for a program to repave 27 miles of county roads.
The development was announced Monday while the Bartholomew County commissioners ratified their $1 million Community Crossings matching grant announced last month.
A statement about the eligibility of federal American Relief Program (ARP) dollars for matching road funds states ARP funds can be used “for the provision of government services to the extent of the reduction in revenue to Columbus, Bartholomew County government, and non-entitlement units of local government, due to the COVID-19 public health emergency.”
In April, 2021, Bartholomew County Auditor Pia O’Connor told elected officials that, instead of asking for an itemized list of county government revenue losses, the federal government was simply allowing counties like Bartholomew to list a standard amount of revenue losses not to exceed $10 million.
Basically, that meant county government could spend the $10 million on whatever it felt was appropriate, O’Connor said.
That same month, the three county commissioners hired Baker Tilly, US, LLP – a Chicago-based public accounting and consulting firm – to inspect each expenditure received through ARP over a two-year period, ensuring that the county was following all rules and regulations established for spending the money.
In total, Bartholomew County government received a total of $16.2 million through ARP from early last year through this month.
While no objections were voiced regarding the use of ARP funds for matching road funds, both county Commissioner Tony London and county highway engineer Danny Hollander expressed concerns with the the inflexibility of the Community Crossings program during a period of high inflation.
Lawmakers in the Indiana General Assembly need to increase annual grant amounts through the program, London said.
“The cost of (repaving) a mile of road is going through the roof.” London said. “What costs us locally to get that million dollars last year, and do the same amount of roads, is going to go up by about 50% this year. Our match of a million last year will be about $1.5 million this year.”
What bothers Hollander the most is that every local unit of government can get up to a million dollars in grant funds every year – no matter what their size.
To illustrate his concern, Hollander asked why all of Bartholomew County (population 83,280) can get the same maximum amount as the town of Clifford (population 233). The highway engineer said it doesn’t make sense that Bartholomew County, which has more than 700 miles of roads and hundreds of bridges to care for, gets the same maximum amount in Community Crossing dollars annually as Clifford, which has only three miles of streets.
Hollander also said the county should get more than the city of Columbus because maintenance of all bridges – both inside and outside of Columbus – is the responsibility of the county unless the structure is on a state or federal highway.
“We need more because we have a larger responsibility,” Hollander said.
While the grant is administered by INDOT, it’s state lawmakers who create the funding formula for the Community Crossings program. London said that’s why he brought up his concerns to State Rep. Ryan Lauer, R-Columbus.
However, no changes are being considered now. The next session of the Indiana General Assembly won’t begin until next January.
