On Monday night the Union Township board voted 2-1 to appropriate $500,000 that had already been spent, largely on cemeteries in the township.
Township trustee Glenna Nevitt insisted that was her legal responsibility.
Board member Gene Everett made the motion after a nearly hour-long discussion with people who attended the meeting in the Union Trustee's office on U.S. 136 next to the Subway sandwich shop.
The motion nearly died for lack of a second until Board President Jack Wyatt compared the situation to an imaginary married couple.
He said the township has about $4 million in its funds.
"If my wife asked me to spend 20 percent of our assets, I would say no," Wyatt said. "If she told me she had already spent the money - I don't know what I would do."
The actual situation was this: Union Township Trustee Glenna Nevitt asked the board to make an additional appropriation of $500,000 to cover various expenses, the bulk being cemetery care and restoration.
Approximately $30,000 was spent on each of 14 cemeteries owned by the township, the county or abandoned with no record of ownership. Nevitt called the $30,000 per cemetery "very cheap."
The work done on the cemeteries involved using SONAR to find unmarked graves, restoring broken headstones, surveying the boundaries of the cemeteries and installing or repairing fences along those boundaries.
County Councilman John Frey expressed his displeasure with the process.
"This should have been done through budgeting and some research done on cost before you went out and spent the money," Frey said. "This is a perfect example of how tax levies are too high."
Frey called for more oversight of the trustee in the future.
"When we have millions of dollars extra that means we're overtaxed," Frey said. "That's how you got the extra."
County Councilman Brian Keim asked if bids were requested for fencing.
"We did that on the first cemetery but they didn't even know (how much it would be)," Nevitt said, adding, "I know it looks messy, but it's a one-time deal."
At the time of the vote, board member Mona Hinesley said she had no idea the money spent totaled $500,000.
"I wish we had some warning it was getting that high," Hinesley said.
Hinesley was the one "no" vote on the motion.
League of Women Voters member Deanna Durrett told the board she found the situation, "troubling" for three reasons.
"We have a budget process that allows for public input and you are going around that process," Durrett said. "Second, the amount of money involved and, most importantly, I do not believe you have authority to spend money that has not been appropriated and I will ask the DLGF if you have the authority to spend money that is not appropriated."
The DLGF is the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance, which oversees local government finances.
Nevitt insisted she had checked with the DLGF and had learned she could wait until after the money was spent to ask the board for the appropriation.
Nevitt leaves office Dec. 31. She was defeated in the Republican primary election by Sally Evans. Evans was unopposed in the November general election.
When Evans takes office, she will decide how to proceed with the cemetery care, including the completion of restoration work.
© 2024 The Paper of Montgomery County