Property owners in West Terre Haute will notice a higher tax bill this spring as part of an effort to stabilize and improve a 2.7-mile levee that surrounds the town.
The West Vigo Levee Association Conservancy District was officially approved last month, creating a new three-member board and the ability to levy a property tax to fund an annual budget and cumulative maintenance and improvement funds. The district will submit an annual budget for final review by the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance.
The district was formed to maintain the levee, which if decertified, would mean that all property parcels in the town would be in a flood zone and homes on mortgages would be required to have flood insurance, said Charles Ray, levee district attorney. Flood insurance can cost $500 or more annually for homes.
The 2016 tax rate is proposed at nearly 29 cents per $100 assessed value. On a house with an assessed value of $50,000, that would result in an estimated $144.08 tax bill.
In an effort to reduce the financial impact of that tax, the town council in 2015 cut the town’s trash fee to $12 per month from $16 per month and cut its sewer bills by 15 percent, said Scott McClain, vice president of the conservancy district.
The new tax rate is expected to fund an annual budget of $85,000, which would include funding a $12,000 cumulative improvement fund and $4,000 cumulative maintenance fund, along with $2,000 for insurance/bonding. The budget also would include a $200,000 loan to be repaid to Vigo County.
Levee officials on Tuesday signed an agreement to pay back $50,000 a year to Vigo County over four years. The county approved the loan in 2015 from the county’s Economic Development Income Tax fund. That money was encumbered for 2016, said Vigo County Auditor Tim Seprodi.
“The first year has no payment on the loan from the county to give us an opportunity to build up a debt service,” said Terry Jones, economic development planner/grant administrator for West Central Indiana Economic Development District. “The other important thing is the cumulative funds, which the previous organization (West Vigo Levee Association) did not have the ability to do. So now we are going to be able to build up money and save it for large projects that inevitably we will have to do. I can see another levee certification in another 15 to 20 years,” Jones said.
Notification of the then-proposed conservancy district was sent to about 800 landowners in late October, Ray said. The levee protects about 1,188 parcels of property in West Terre Haute from flooding associated with Sugar Creek, which runs along the southwest section of the community, and from the Wabash River, which lies east of the town.
In 2011, Kentucky-based Cole Engineering Solutions was hired as part of a $462,890 grant. The former levee association and the town of West Terre Haute paid an additional $22,500 in matching funds. The grant paid Cole Engineering Solutions to provide data and documentation and then sign off that the levee around West Terre Haute would provide flood protection that could meet Federal Emergency Management Agency certification requirements.
The West Terre Haute levee is the only FEMA-certified levee in Vigo County.
The town has completed the certification process; however, it has $200,000 of work to repair deficiencies in the levee identified during the certification process, Jones said
Work includes raising about 300 feet of the levee an additional foot in height. Under federal requirements, a levee must be built 3 feet higher than a 100-year flood event. This section runs from the edge of National Avenue, near Sugar Creek Scrap, west toward Sugar Creek.
Another section to have clay fill installed, which is about 80 percent completed, Jones said, is located along McIlroy Street north and south on the southeast side of West Terre Haute. It is an area near a water flood gate. The area had allowed water to pool at the base of the levee, Jones said.