02/05/2018
Residents of Rutherford, Lost River, and Mitcheltree Townships. House Bill 1005 will eliminate our townships if it passes. This bill is Authored by Rep. Cindy Ziemke, and co-authored by Rep. Jerry Torr, Rep. Kevin Mahan, and Rep. Edward LeLaney. If you want to save our townships, contact these Representatives, and our local Representative Shane Lindauer of Jasper.
This is a copy of the letter I sent to the authors of this bill.
Rep. Ziemke, I wanted to reach out to you about HB1005, merging of townships. I am the trustee of Rutherford Township which has 760 residents and will be affected by this bill. I must admit I was floored when I saw the total state township budgets of 378 million dollars. I started looking into other township budgets and found Center Township in Marion County had a budget of $5,000,000. I don't know all of what they do, but my budget is $42,000 total. The services still need to be paid such as cemetery care, poor relief, and fire protection. I am sure the township that takes us over will raise their budget to make up for the extra work. I talked to the Indiana Township Association and they told me that they were told to reform themselves or the state will reform them. I feel the ITA threw us under the bus on this one to keep the bigger members going. I agree that reform is needed and like some of the things I read in that bill. I always thought that my budget should be broke at the end of the year and if I had surplus, that amount should be deducted from what I take in the following year. I read that some trustees make more than the Governor and are furnished a vehicle. I really like what I do and have helped several people who have suffered hardships. I have had several get so far behind on their bills due to illness or from layoffs, that they would never be able to get caught up. I reach out to other organizations and work with them to get these people back on their feet. I have also stopped people from making a false application because we are small enough that I know most of these people. You will loose this ability if we get merged with another township. I saw in an article written by Purdue Extension that there are a few townships under 30 people and feel those should be merged , but feel mine is large enough to exist. I ask that you reconsider this part of the bill, and possibly cut the entire budget by 5-7%. That should work out to about the amount that you would save if you eliminated these townships under 1200 residents.
Thank You,
Terry J Street
Rutherford Township Trustee
