Pulaski County continues to review its tax abatement procedures. Community Development Commission Executive Director Nathan Origer gave an update to the county commissioners last week. “A while back, I had informed you and the council that we’re working on trying to put some formal guidelines in place, when it comes to tax abatements,” he explained, “so that it’s not just me coming with an employer and saying, ‘They want to grow. Here’s what they want to do. Give them a tax abatement.’ There’s some additional review of it, before it gets to the county council or a town council.”
Rather than forming an entirely new group to review abatement requests, Origer said he’s working with the Town of Winamac to revive its economic development commission. “In a community where there is no county-wide economic development commission – which mine is not, under state law – and there are no other towns that have them, they have the statutory authority to be involved in projects outside of their jurisdiction,” he said. “That’s the entity through which economic development revenue bonds are issued to fund projects. We haven’t done one of those in the county in probably a decade, but they have the authority to do that outside of the Town of Winamac, too, because there are no others.”
Origer said the CDC is still working on a set of rules for the economic development commission to follow, when reviewing tax abatement requests.
