With the stroke of a pen on Friday, Southwestern Indiana officials put the area closer to accessing $42 million in Regional Cities Initiative money.
The five members of the Southwest Indiana Regional Development Authority signed a contract with the Indiana Economic Development Corp. — a necessary step before the local group can get its hands on the Regional Cities money.
"This allows us to move ahead and begin to make the grants in the not-too-distant future," said Mike Schopmeyer, the regional development authority's attorney.
According to the terms of the contract, the IEDC will release money to the authority on a per-project basis, once claim forms have been submitted.
The authority will then release the money to the parties involved in that project.
Also per the contract, the authority must make quarterly and annual reports to the IEDC, submit to annual audits and provide documentation to the IEDC if requested.
In the event that Regional Cities money is spent improperly, the contract provides a clawback provision enabling the IEDC to recover that money.
The four-year contract runs through April 21, 2020.
"Beginning today, we are on a four-year time clock to implement our plan," said Southwest Indiana Regional Development Authority President Beth McFadin Higgins.
Regional Cities is a new state program that aims to increase Indiana's population by funding quality-of-life projects in selected regions of the state. Southwestern Indiana, the Fort Wayne and the South Bend areas are each in line to receive $42 million.
In Southwestern Indiana, Regional Cities money will help fund a dozen projects in Vanderburgh, Warrick, Posey and Gibson counties. Each of the projects will also include local public funding and/or private investment.