County approves abatement for Metal Forming Industries

Thursday, November 18, 2021

A Russellville employer will receive tax abatement on a new $270,000 piece of equipment.

On Tuesday, the Putnam County Council approved a 10-year personal property tax abatement for Metal Forming Industries, 7903 W. CR 1325 North, Russellville.

The plant lies just west of Russellville and is therefore in the jurisdiction of the county, not the town.

Metal Forming President and CEO Ron St. Clair was in attendance Tuesday, along with Greencastle-Putnam County Development Center Director Kristin Clary, to answer any questions the council members had.

Clary explained that the new equipment had been purchased with a Manufacturing Readiness Grant from the State of Indiana.

St. Clair told the Council his company is a manufacturer of industrial components with customers such as BorgWarner.

The plant currently employs 25 workers, 23 of them from Putnam County. St. Clair said the new equipment will allow them to add two additional employees.

“We pay above county scale wages that go from $12 an hour to start up to over $30 for skilled trades,” St. Clair said. “We’re going to continue to grow. We’re planning to stay here.”

Metal Forming has been in Russellville since 1991 and under the ownership of St. Clair and partner Diane Fordice for the last 10 years.

“We’d like to have, within the next 10 years, 100 family-supporting jobs — which means more than $30,000,” St. Clair said. “We want to bring in robots, not to take anybody’s job, but to increase productivity.”

He added that there is an adjoining 4.2 acres of land on which the plant could expand by another 25,000-30,000 square feet.

“Diane and I would like to transition to local ownership,” he said. “We don’t want to sell it to somebody who would move it away from here.”

The abatement was made possible last month when the county approved the area as an economic revitalization zone. During a brief public hearing on Tuesday, no members of the public made any statements for or against the measure.

Clary explained that the company has paid $90,000 in property taxes since 2006.

She added that without abatement, $15,000 in property taxes would be paid on the new equipment over the next 10 years. With the taxes phasing in over that period, the number will be $6,000.

The council unanimously approved the request.

In other business, the Council:

• Approved three separate requests for the Putnam County Jail.

Chief Deputy Matt Demmings and Head Matron Tresha Clearwaters presented information about some higher costs at the jail during the last year.

First of all, expensive medications for just three inmates have cost the department $32,000 in excess medical expenses in 2021.

Additionally, food costs have gone up for the jail, both from the increasing food costs faced by many Americans right now, as well as an average monthly jail population that has increased from about 100 in 2020 to 120 this year.

The jail served more trays of food in the first 10 months of 2021 than it did in the entirety of 2020.

The first request was for a $7,000 reimbursement to the inmate medical fund, along with a $27,000 additional appropriation from Department of Correction funds to inmate medical.

The third request was another additional appropriation from DOC funds, this one for $26,000 to inmate meals.

Clearwaters explained that these DOC funds are generated when the department houses inmates for the Department of Correction. The account had not been touched since 2018.

• Approved two separate additional appropriations for the Putnam County Highway Department, $18,500 for computers and $88,500 for a DuraPatcher, which is used to fix potholes.

Funds for both are coming from the Motor Vehicle-Highway Fund.

In requesting approval, Department Supervisor Mike Ricketts explained that a recent online sale of equipment should net the department $165,000, though the biggest part of that — $85,000 for a single truck — has yet to be paid.

• Gave Clerk Heather Gilbert the blessing to move forward with a pair of salary adjustments to reflect new duties after a recent resignation and new hire.

Gilbert also noted that during 2022 budget hearings, $18,200 was cut from her part-time employee budget.

However, Gilbert hasn’t been using her part-time budget in 2021, as the lack of an election allowed her to use Voter Registration Office employees to cover some of these duties.

Since there will be an election in 2022, Gilbert plans to be back in January to request the unused 2021 funds be put into her 2022 budget.

• Approved an additional $15,000 from County General to the Juvenile Detention Account.

Detentions are up in 2021, which is a cost that cannot be controlled by the department.

County Council Members Dave Fuhrman, Stephanie Campbell, Keith Berry, Larry Parker, Phil Gick and Jay Alcorn were joined at the meeting by Auditor Kristina Berish and Council Attorney Trudy Selvia. Councilman Danny Wallace was not in attendance.

The next meeting of the Putnam County Council will be at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 15 on the first floor of the Putnam County Courthouse.

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