The Indiana General Assembly is considering legislation that would help fund quality-of-life projects in various regions that could include Huntington.
The Regional Cities Initiative would provide funding to self-identified regions in Indiana, according to a release from Greater Fort Wayne and the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership. One of these could be the Northeast Indiana region, which consists of 10 counties, including Huntington.
The Regional Cities Initiative
Mark Wickersham, executive director of Huntington County Economic Development, said the House bill would provide loans and grants to regional economic development authorities administered by the Indiana Economic Development Corp.
"The idea, in general terms, within the economic development world...(is that) the long-term key to success is to consistently and effectively recruit and provide individual talent needed for businesses to sustain longevity," he said.
This means, Wickersham added, that communities need to have projects that help with quality-of-life opportunities so they can keep a competitive edge in attracting talent.
Many communities are already doing this individually, he said, including Huntington with projects such as the creation of walking trails.
"We believe, in the economic development communities around the state, that we simply need to encourage and have more opportunities to improve the quality of life in our communities and would like the State of Indiana to adopt a new initiative to help do that," Wickersham said.
The Regional Cities Initiative is set to work through regional organizations called regional development authorities, Wickersham said.
He said the project, as envisioned by the Indiana Economic Development Corp., would have 20 percent of project funding coming from the state and 20 percent from the local level to support 60 percent of funding from the private sector.
Originally, the funding submitted by Gov. Mike Pence included $84 million, which could support as many as eight regional cities, Wickersham said.
However, a version of the bill passed by the House of Representatives cut that funding to $20 million over two years, he said. That bill was sent to the Senate, which didn't recommend any additional funding.
Wickersham added the state hasn't figured out where that money will come from yet.
"The state has the following options: they can raise taxes, they can cut spending from an existing program and transfer it into a new program like Regional Cities or they can tap reserve funds or they can tap trust funds or some variation of all of the above," he said.
Wickersham added this could be a "very interesting" opportunity for the region, but said the funding would have to be taken care of and there are no easy answers to that question, which could defeat the legislation.
Wickersham said the concept can work to Huntington's advantage.
"Certainly, the stronger the quality of life in Northeast Indiana overall the better for Huntington; the county obviously would benefit from regionalism," he said.
Tina Bobilya, executive director of the Huntington County Visitors and Convention Bureau, said the point of the initiative is to improve the region.
However, it can have a positive effect locally, as money given to the region would be "significant" and spread out throughout the region.
"It would allow us to get things that we wouldn't have been able to fund," Bobilya said.
Overall, she said it was meant to be a "game changer" for the area and makes the region more competitive for economic development.
A regional steering committee has already been established, with representatives from all 10 regional counties and several regional organizations and businesses.
"It's a great, diverse representation of all the wonderful things that are happening in our region," Huntington University President Sherilyn Emberton, a member of the committee, said. "Our purpose is to try to look at ways that we can both attract talent to our region but also maybe launch some great opportunities and get some additional funding for opportunities that are already on the board for moving our region forward."
Overall, Emberton said the region is very excited to potentially participate in such an opportunity and it's not very often that regions get a chance for this type of funding.