Wabash Township turned away in request for a cut of countywide public safety income tax
Township officials make a case for firefighting needs in a rapidly growing part of county. Response: This really isn’t the time. Plus, county sued for claims of wrongful death of man held at the jail.
Support for this edition comes from MatchBOX Studios. Sixth & South, MatchBOX Studios’ annual fundraising event, returns 7-11 p.m. Friday, July 11, inside MatchBOX and on Sixth Street from South to Alabama streets. The event benefits entrepreneurship by supporting small and local businesses, first-generation founders, pre-revenue startups, and underfunded and underserved innovators. Tickets cover your event admission, music sets by DJ Karabella and Ebony & the Ruckus, local food, NA beverages, access to an auction full of local and experiential items, and two tokens that can be exchanged for curated event experiences such as candle pouring, axe throwing, a petting zoo and more, or drinks from the bar (additional tokens will be available for purchase). Get your tickets and all of the event details: https://mbx.studio/sixthsouth
WABASH TOWNSHIP TURNED AWAY IN REQUEST FOR CUT OF COUNTYWIDE PUBLIC SAFETY INCOME TAX
Wabash Township officials made their case Tuesday that population growth and fast development in the unincorporated areas ringing West Lafayette should qualify the township’s fire department for a share of a countywide local income tax set aside for public safety expenses.
But a split Tippecanoe County Council, the fiscal decision-makers for the county, rejected the idea, saying the township made a good case at a bad time, when all levels of government were trying to get a grasp on state-imposed budget cuts and feeling their way through the looming impacts of property tax reform in recently approved Senate Bill 1.
On a 4-2 vote, the county council said it wouldn’t go forward with Wabash Township Trustee Angel Valentin’s request t
It wasn’t the first time Wabash Township had asked for a cut of the 0.18% income tax since it was created in 2019. In the past two years, the township had unsuccessfully asked for $250,000 each time, without a hearing, before a Sept. 1 deadline to requests for local income tax revenues.
The difference this year with Wabash Township’s $600,000 request was a new state law that now requires members of what’s called the Tippecanoe County Income Tax Council – made up of officials from Tippecanoe County, Lafayette, West Lafayette and the towns of Battle Ground, Clarks Hill, Dayton, Otterbein and Shadeland – to hold a public hearing when a township asks for some of that money. Each of those bodies gets a weighted vote on local income tax questions.
Wabash Township, or any township, essentially would need the blessing of two of the biggest three – Lafayette, West Lafayette and Tippecanoe County – to get past that 50% threshold for approval or denial.
Valentin said after Tuesday’s vote that he was already talking with members of the West Lafayette City Council to keep this year’s request alive.
“I’m still working,” Valentin said. “I understand some of the constraints from the county council. We're all facing decisions. … I just think we have a case that residents who live in unincorporated Wabash Township – one of the fastest-growing parts of the county – deserve some consideration.”
Jody Hamilton, president of the Tippecanoe County Council, joined those who voted against a resolution that would have put Wabash Township’s $600,000 request up for a formal vote. She said a new committee had been assembled to take a comprehensive look at public safety agencies across the county to help prioritize the needs and make recommendations.
“When we have requests like this, that committee will actually be looking at those in great detail,” Hamilton said after Tuesday morning’s meeting. “With all the changes coming our way, I really want to look at it as a whole. Do we need to start considering giving portions to the townships? But before we look at that, we’ve got to really figure out what the impact is going to be on everyone.”
Since appearing on local pay stubs, the public safety local impact tax will have collect about $58 million by the end of 2025, including roughly $12 million this year, according to numbers discussed Tuesday. Valentin said of that total, residents in unincorporated Wabash Township had put in $5.8 million.
During 2019 public hearings, when the public safety income tax was still a proposal – coming in at $65 a year for someone making $40,000 in adjusted gross income – township trustees asked to be included along with the cities, the county and the small towns in the distribution to help fund fire departments. It didn’t happen. (Then-Wabash Township Trustee Jennifer Teising came to the podium during a September 2019 hearing, asking to pass the tax and give townships a cut. That night, she returned to the microphone and, speaking as a private resident, encouraged county council members to keep people in low-paying jobs in mind when considering an income tax.)
“I know it’s not the fault of this body, but the way that it was set up in state law didn't make townships an automatic recipient,” Valentin said. “I think that this process, and allowing us to be able to request it, starts to correct a little bit of that oversight.”
In 2023, Valentin pitched an idea to increase public safety income tax from 0.18% to 0.2% so township could get ahead of fire department radio equipment upgrades on the horizon. That proposal didn’t get traction.
On Tuesday, Valentine’s $600,000 request would go for radio upgrades and scheduled air pack system replacement for the fire department.
His argument: The Wabash Township Fire Department, covering 39 square miles west, south and north of West Lafayette, was looking at an 18.2% increase in runs in 2025, after a 16.4% increase in 2024. He said that the 1,750 runs anticipated in 2025 would equal 56% of the runs made by the West Lafayette Fire Department.
He given development in the unincorporated part of the township, population has grown from 17,613 in 2011 to 20,735 in 2020. That’s a 17.7% increase. Valentin said the population in the Wabash Township Fire Department’s service area is expected to grow to more than 32,000 by the early 2030s. That would be an increase of 54% in the time the public safety income tax started being collected.
Valentin said the township was already discussing the need for a fire station in the northern part of the township, along with the trucks that go with it.
“It's not that we are going and asking for the moon and the stars,” Valentin said. “We're trying to get closer to where our residents need us to be.”
If Wabash Township’s request got through, that $600,000 would come off the top of the local income tax revenues. The cities, county and town distributions would be reduced proportionally. County Auditor Jennifer Westin on Tuesday put rough calculations at $278,000 less for the county, $239,000 less for Lafayette and $72,000 less for West Lafayette.
Lisa Dullum, a county council member, asked whether other townships would want to get in on it, too. Valentin said no other township in the county had applied by the July 1 deadline. But he said others likely would follow in coming years.
Council member Ben Murray asked Valetin why, with the other fire department expenses predicted, the township purchased an ambulance, when Tippecanoe Emergency Ambulance Service was covering that area. Valentin defended that decision, saying the township anticipated the ambulance would not only provide better response times but also “to be revenue positive.”
“Unfortunately, hard decisions have to be made,” Murray said. “Government, collectively, across the state, those decisions are happening. … And here you are asking for more.”
Barry Richard, a county council member, called Wabash Township’s proposal reasonable and well thought out. He and council member Ben Carson voted to let it advance. Hamilton, Dullum, Murray and Kathy Vernon voted against it.
Wabash Township Fire Chief Ed Ward left the council meeting frustrated.
“It's incredibly frustrating that for the third year in a row, the county council cannot seem to find value in working towards a solution – or even allowing further discussion – that would allocate any of the more than $5.8 million collected within Wabash Township, under the guise of a ‘public safety tax,’ to the very real public safety needs of those the funds were collected from,” Ward said. “The ‘public safety tax’ collected has continued to increase as the population has increased, but the implied message being played on repeat to Wabash Township as we work to keep up with the growth has been a resounding, ‘Good luck!’”
WRONGFUL DEATH CASE ACCUSES TIPPECANOE COUNTY JAIL OFFICERS, MEDICAL STAFF OF IGNORING, MOCKING MEDICAL COMPLAINTS OF INMATE
The son of a 38-year-old Delphi man who died after he was jailed in 2024 filed a wrongful death lawsuit this week in federal court against the Tippecanoe County sheriff and others connected with the jail.
The lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court’s Northern Indiana Division contends that Troy D. Pownell – arrested in April 2024 on a warrant for missing a court hearing – was ignored by jail staff when he complained about abdominal pain over the course of several days.
The complaint contends that Pownell was mocked for “faking it,” staff considering his complaints a part of drug withdrawal; his cell mate was yelled at for pushing a call button for help, being told it was “only for emergencies,” and that Pownell was told, “You’re not getting a free ride to the hospital today.” At one point, the complaint contends, a jail officer can be heard on video saying, “Stop being a pussy.” The lawsuit contends that by the time jail staff arranged to have him taken to the hospital, he was found seizing on the floor of his cell with no pulse. He died the next day at a Lafayette hospital, the complaint saying it was from sepsis due to a perforated duodenal ulcer.
The lawsuit names Sheriff Bob Goldsmith; former jail commander Thomas Lehman; Quality Correctional Care, the company that provided health care at the jail; along with five county jail officers and two nurses.
Goldsmith on Tuesday declined to comment on the lawsuit. No formal response had been filed in federal court as of Tuesday.
The lawsuit asks for compensatory and punitive damages.
“I miss my dad every day and just wish they would have helped him when it was so obvious that he needed to go to the hospital,” Troy A. Pownell, Pownell’s son, said in a statement released by his attorneys Stephen Wagner and Susannah Hall-Justice. “We hope this case helps change how people with medical problems are treated when they are in jail. Rest in peace, Dad.”
Here’s a look at the complaint:
OTHER READS …
Indiana Capital Chronicle editor Niki Kelly had your moment of oof Tuesday with the announcement that Indiana Public Broadcasting was eliminating its entire statewide team of reporters and editors at the end of the year after the Indiana General Assembly defunded the organization. From Kelly’s article: “Indiana lawmakers in April cut the program’s $3.675 million annual funding after a lower-than-expected revenue forecast. Other programs were trimmed, but IPBS lost its entire line item. Shortly after, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that cut all federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides funding to the Public Broadcasting Service, National Public Radio and member stations, alleging ‘bias’ in the organizations’ reporting.” For more from the Indiana Capital Chronicle’s story: “Indiana Public Broadcasting statewide reporting team eliminated.”
Thanks to BiL readers for supporting local journalism. Man, the ranks are getting thin out on the front lines of news.
Thanks, again, for support for this edition from MatchBOX Studios. Sixth & South, MatchBOX Studios’ annual fundraising event, returns 7-11 p.m. Friday, July 11, inside MatchBOX and on Sixth Street from South to Alabama streets. Get your tickets and all of the event details at mbx.studio/sixthsouth
Thank you for supporting Based in Lafayette, an independent, local reporting project. Free and full-ride subscription options are ready for you here.
Tips, story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com.
Using the purchase of an ambulance against Angel was unfair. I agree with the Trustee that the ambulance is one of the only ways to increase service to the township while also providing some fire department income that is not in the form of taxes. Hopefully West Lafayette and Lafayette can see the issue from a different perspective and let the request move forward.
Thanks for keeping us informed. You are a rare bird these days!