NIRPC seeks an increase in funding
Northwest Indiana’s transportation planning agency is looking to expand its mission, and its funding.
The Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission’s executive board passed a resolution Thursday seeking a legislative amendment to increase the support NIRPC gets from Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties.
Most of the money to run NIRPC comes from state and federal agencies, since NIRPC’s biggest task is to review and prioritize transportation spending in the three-county region.
But NIRPC also has asked the U.S. Economic Development Administration to have Northwest Indiana designated as an economic development district. NIRPC would need more local dollars to administer that program, Executive Director Ty Warner said.
About $540,000 of NIRPC’s current $3.2 million budget comes from the three counties, which pay 70 cents per resident.
The per-capita rate hasn’t changed since 1992. “We use every single penny of that amount,” Warner said.
The resolution passed Thursday seeks an amendment to increase the per-capita rate to 96 cents, based on inflation, and to adjust that each year according to inflation. Increasing the per-capita to 96 cents would add more than $200,000 to NIRPC’s budget.
Legislation to do that hasn’t been introduced yet, Warner said, and might not be until next year.
Lake County Council member Charlie Brown, D-Gary, said it’d be important for NIRPC to tell the three counties, “Here’s what we need, and why.”
The NIRPC executive board also passed three other resolutions asking for state action:
A request supporting a proposed U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study to develop long-term solutions to shoreline erosion in Lake Michigan, and asking for state funding to match federal
money for the study. The estimated cost would be $1.6 million, and the state’s share would be half of that, officials said.
Erosion has been particularly severe at the Portage lakefront park, where the lake has covered the former beach there and has eroded away a walkway and an overlook.
“We are in an emergency,” State Sen. Karen Tallian, D-Portage, says in a video shown at the meeting.
Support for House Bill 1090, which would require railroad companies to tell local police agencies when a train would be blocking a road crossing for more than 10 minutes. The Indiana Supreme Court last year struck down a 19th century law that allowed municipalities to issue fines when railroads blocked crossings.
Support for Senate Bill 83, which would allow a redevelopment commission that has set up a tax increment financing district to used up to 15 percent of the TIF proceeds for maintenance to roads and other infrastructure built with TIF funds.