CUMBERLAND — An investigation by Cumberland’s town manager calls into question a new town councilman’s residency, but the councilman maintains he lives in town and has filed a complaint with the council about the town manager’s actions.
The investigation report refers to residences the councilman owns and suggests while he owns a home in Cumberland, he may not call it home. But the councilman insists that’s his primary residence, despite the fact that his wife does not live there.
Donald “Breck” Terheide was elected in November to represent Cumberland Town Council District 4, which straddles Marion and Hancock counties. The Republican has served on the Cumberland Metropolitan Board of Police Commissioners since January 2016.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]
April Fisher, Cumberland town manager, started an investigation into Terheide’s residency in September. According to an investigation report released by the town, the investigation started after Fisher was looking for an address for Terheide to update information kept by town staff.
The report refers to the home Terheide and his wife, Carol, bought in Wilkinson in 2001 and the home they bought in 2013 in the 900 block of Washington Cove Way, Cumberland. Terheide lists the Cumberland home as his address for serving on the board of police commissioners and town council.
Terheide told the Daily Reporter that his late mother, Barbara, lived with him and his wife in Wilkinson until she could no longer navigate the home’s stairs. He and his wife bought the Cumberland house for his mother, where she’d be more comfortable. Terheide said he stayed with his mother during the week and would go back to Wilkinson on weekends. Eventually, his mother had to move to a nursing home, and she died in June 2016.
The investigation report also refers to a home with an Anderson address that Terheide and his wife bought in October 2017 along with the homestead deduction applied to it and removed from their Wilkinson home.
Terheide said the Anderson home has an in-laws quarters that allows members of his wife’s family to live there. He and his wife chose to apply their homestead deduction to the Anderson home because it is worth more than the Cumberland one, he added.
The Cumberland house remains his primary residence, he said, adding it’s where he’s registered to vote and that its address is listed on his driver’s license.
“For whatever reason, they can’t wrap their head around that my wife and I have two separate residences,” Terheide said of the investigation. “I don’t know in the 21st century that that’s all that uncommon.”
The investigation report refers to a rental property business, BCT Properties, that Terheide and his wife run. Various paperwork associated with the company lists addresses for the Wilkinson, Cumberland and Anderson properties, according to the report.
Terheide said anything having to do with the company associated with his wife’s responsibilities goes to addresses she’s associated with, while the Cumberland address is used for everything he handles.
The report also refers to Terheide’s full-time position as a captain with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, which requires him to live in Marion County or a county bordering it. The Cumberland and Wilkinson properties qualify while the one in Anderson does not.
Per state law, election paperwork requires candidates to list employers from which they receive at least 33% of their income, the report continues. Terheide lists the IMPD on his paperwork but not Ball State University, where he also works as a professor. According to Fisher’s investigation, Terheide in 2018 earned more than $102,000 from IMPD and more than $84,000 from Ball State University.
Terheide pointed out that the candidacy paperwork only asks for one employer, but he acknowledges he may have erred in neglecting to include his employment at Ball State.
The investigation report states Terheide received more than $2,000 in payments for his service on the town’s board of police commissioners. Receiving payment for this service while not a resident of Cumberland could constitute theft, the report continues, adding that state statute requires the Marion County prosecutor’s office and Indiana State Board of Accounts be contacted.
Neither the prosecutor’s office nor the board of accounts responded to a request for comment for this story.
Terheide said all of the questions the investigation raises have reasonable explanations. He’s dismayed no one from the town reached out to him about those questions before he discovered the investigation in passing in October 2019.
His attorney, Robert Turner, agreed.
“I just don’t understand how you can investigate anything and not talk to the person you’re investigating,” Turner said.
But Fisher told the Daily Reporter in an email that wouldn’t have been appropriate.
“It is my job to inform the council on council issues,” Fisher said. “It would not be my place to discuss the matter with Mr. Terheide.”
The investigation also led the Marion County Democratic Party to file a complaint against Terheide with the Marion County Election Board, which is pending. Terheide defeated incumbent Democratic Cumberland town councilor Aaron Cutshaw in the 2019 election.
In response to the investigation, Terheide filed a complaint against Fisher with Cumberland Town Council President Joe Siefker in November. Terheide’s complaint accuses Fisher of exercising authority beyond her scope of employment; misappropriation of taxpayer dollars and employee services; precipitating an investigation by the Special Investigations Unit of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department; and attempting to impact the Cumberland Town Council election.
Siefker did not return a request for comment.
Fisher said she did not initiate the investigation because of the election, but rather discoveries she made while updating contact information for the police commission, namely the multiple addresses associated with Terheide and the homestead tax deduction on the house he owns with his wife in Anderson.
“The concern was whether or not Mr. Terheide was a town resident for purposes of being appointed to the town’s police commission,” which requires appointees to be town residents, she said.
One of her duties is to ensure the town complies with local and state laws, Fisher continued.
“Indiana law is very clear that if there is reason to believe public funds have been misappropriated, the matter must immediately be reported to the state board of accounts and the county prosecutor,” she said. “Therefore, I gathered all the relevant information I was able to find and the matter was reported as required by law. It is up to the county prosecutor and the state board of accounts to decide if they will investigate the matter themselves or refer it to a police agency for investigation.”
