NEW PALESTINE — New Palestine was turned down for the most recent Community Crossing Grant from the Indiana Department of Transportation. One of the reasons? State officials found New Palestine wanted money to repave roads not identified in the town’s official inventory.
The rejection from INDOT raised a red flag for town officials, who have since discovered they had missed many of the town’s streets and roads for decades.
The mistake is a major problem because the town — like every municipality — receives tax dollars from the state to care for roads identified as their responsibility. The state auditor makes road funding distributions to local governments out of the state’s Motor Vehicle Highway Account and the Local Road and Street Account as prescribed by formulas set out in statute. These distributions are made possible through fuel taxes, vehicle registration costs and other transportation-related fees.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]
Click here to purchase photos from this galleryBy the time officials caught up to the problem, almost eight miles of streets and roads in the town were not being included. The total would nearly double the town’s inventory, and it has missed out for years on untold thousands of dollars of revenue to which it was entitled.
“It’s disappointing and surprising,” said Brandee Bastin, president of the town council. “We need to be sure measures are in place moving forward so this doesn’t happen again.”
Officially, New Palestine had not been claiming a total of 7.8 miles along 49 streets and roads in the town. They include everything from main roads — such as a stretch of County Road 500W south of U.S. 52 — to neighborhood streets.
According to the Indiana Jurisdictional Mileage report put out by INDOT, New Palestine officials claimed 8.4 miles of roads from 2015 through 2018
Angie Fahrnow, who joined the town council on Jan. 4, has researched the issue and has estimated tax revenue lost through the decades could total well over $500,000 based on state and county funding figures.
She also thinks the actual roads left out of the inventory is closer to 8.4 miles. Her figures were derived after she personally walked and measured the missing mileage with a pedometer.
“I think the department heads have been evasive in giving us all the information,” Fahrnow said. “We don’t have the full story.”
Town manager Dave Book and street commissioner Steve Pool acknowledge the mistake but think the lost revenue is probably much less, perhaps around $200,000.
Town, county and state officials said it’s difficult to calculate the exact amount of lost money since tax revenues change every year and each year is different depending on when roads were added.
One figure recently submitted to the town council by Pool estimated the town had lost $8,509 in tax money from the county auto excise surtax and wheel tax as well as money from the local road and street fund because of unidentified roads in 2018. But that’s only for one year of missed inventory, and the issue has been going on for decades.
Book, who has been the town manager for 36 years, admits he simply neglected to make sure all streets and roads were accounted for year in and year out.
“I’ve got to take the blame for it,” Book said. “It’s on my shoulders — I just missed them.”
The chronic oversights came to light when Pool, who was hired as the town’s street commissioner three years ago, learned from INDOT several months ago that something was wrong as officials looked closely at the Community Crossings grant application. The program is a partnership between INDOT and local communities to invest in projects to improve roads and streets.
The roads Pool hoped to repave with grant money were identified through an asset management plan that consultants had put together for the town.
Pool said he assumed the streets and roads on their application were in the inventory, and he had no idea he should have questioned the list. South Westside Drive and Coventry Court, added in the 1950s and the 1990s, respectively, were not in the town’s inventory.
“I was pretty shocked,” Pool said.
Pool said they could have potentially lost around $80,000 to $90,000 in the 75-25 percent matching grant, depending on bids on the project. He is, however, reapplying for the grant during a second cycle in 2020 and is hopeful the town will get it now that all roads have been added to the inventory.
Book noted many of the roads they missed for decades have been taken care of by either the town or the county, regardless of the lost revenue. Some of the streets are so new they haven’t yet required repair.
Among the roads that should have been included in the town’s inventory, about 2.3 miles along County Roads 500W, 450W, 400S and 300S have been kept up by the county through the years, Book said. The county has been collecting tax dollars on those roads, an estimated $70,000.
So how did the mistake happen? Old road inventory requirements, prior to 2000, would not let town officials input one-lane, one-way, or cal-de-sac streets, of which New Palestine has several, Book said.
“I have no idea and neither does anyone at INDOT on when they changed the rules,” Book said.
But that doesn’t answer how newer roads and streets added as the town has grown have been left off the road inventory.
Since the discovery of the error, county road officials said they reached out to help New Palestine identify and get all town roads into the inventory.
Gary Pool, the head of the county highway department (no relation to Steve Pool) said the task of keeping track of roads can be complicated.
“Mistakes like this can happen to any town,” said Gary Pool, who estimated the accumulated loss in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The smaller the town, the easier it is to miss things because there just aren’t enough employees to do the detail work, Gary Pool said.
Book has worn many hats during his long tenure, including as street commissioner and wastewater plant operator. Sometimes, he has worn those hats at the same time. He was, however, paid well to do all the different jobs at the same time, town officials said.
A look at town salaries shows that in 2016 Book, made a total of $87,880. Approximately $28,194 of that was for being the town’s street supervisor. In 2018 Book was paid $91,498. State records show he made $96,858 in 2019.
As for the missed street mileage, the town has since submitted an updated list to INDOT, Steve Pool said, and he’s received confirmation from INDOT the changes have been made.
However, the money they’ve lost throughout the years is gone and can never be claimed.
“It is a shame, and I feel horrible about it,” Book said. “We never have enough money.”
Despite the mistake, town officials were able to secure $308,069 in INDOT grant money to care for town roads the past couple of years, Steve Pool said.
“Our roads are in good shape,” he said.
Still, Fahrnow noted that funding came from Community Crossings grants and not dedicated tax revenue, which the town could have also used.
Not identifying nearly half the town’s roads for years is inexcusable, longtime council member Clint Bledsoe said. He noted mistakes happen and also suggested INDOT officials should have caught the error long ago.
“Every single road in the state has to be on somebody’s inventory… They’re on the state maps,” Bledsoe said.
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”What they missed” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
Portions of 49 streets and roads — totaling about eight miles — were left off the New Palestine street inventory, some for decades. Here’s a sampling:
County Road 500W – 0.709 miles
County Road 450W – 0.973 miles
West Cedar Cove Drive – 0.160 miles
Cedar Cove Court – 0.109 miles
W. Cedar Cove Way – 0.119 miles
Cedar Creek Way – 0.162 miles
Cedar Creek Place – 0.100 miles
Cedar Creek Lane – 0.325 miles
Cedar Creek Drive – 0.198 miles
South Seifert Court – 0.014 miles
Lawrence Way – 0.297 miles
[sc:pullout-text-end]
