Frankfort Mayor Chris McBarnes gave his 2018 State of the City address Thursday afternoon in the new Radio/TV facilities at Frankfort High School. The following is his speech.
Thank you, Matt, for such a gracious introduction. The Frankfort Future Leaders Advisory Council is a highly creative and deeply committed group of young leaders who I have the pleasure to work with on a variety of initiatives for our community.
I know – I KNOW – Frankfort’s future is in great hands, having witnessed their very capable leadership that will only grow and strengthen as these young leaders evolve in their high-achieving lives.
I’m speaking to you from Frankfort High School’s outstanding,
sophisticated broadcasting studio, all thanks to the partnership with instructor Richard Sallee and the talented students in the radio and TV class who are working with me on this presentation today. My thanks to all of them!
This year’s State of the City has, in a way, already been shared with you through the series of mayoral messages I’ve sent out to our local media and posted on the City’s Web site and my Facebook page in the past few weeks.
The five messages covered an overview of the challenges and opportunities we face as a community, the financial state of our city and how we plan to fund the vision for enhancing Frankfort’s quality of place through a new police station, the development of Prairie Creek Park in our downtown and enhancements needed to our wastewater treatment plant.
While we may differ on what should or should not be done with any opportunity, we all can agree we want Frankfort to improve and become a stronger city for our children and grandchildren.
Change is never easy. But change – planned carefully in a strategic direction – can be beneficial, especially when the other option of doing nothing is extremely detrimental.
Frankfort is at an economic and community development crossroads.
We either can take well thought out, bold steps necessary to make our community appealing, vibrant and strong for generations to come OR we can keep the status quo, do very little and hope that by eking out drops of progress that somehow, we thrive.
The bold steps WE HAVE JOINED TOGETHER to take in a short amount of time to move Frankfort forward include:
- building an Ivy Tech Community College campus in the heart of our city
- helping create hundreds of new jobs throughout our industrial sector
- making record investments into our local roads with more to come
- building new streetscapes in our downtown
- restoring and beautifying historic Old Stoney
- strengthening the operations of our municipal utilities with a business mindset
- improving our infrastructure throughout every city department to better serve all citizens
- attracting a $7.2 million-dollar luxury apartment complex in the heart of our downtown square
- implementing competitive pay wages for City employees to attract and retain top talent
- helping save and repurpose the former Southside Elementary School as senior housing
- and recently being named the 23rd Safest City in Indiana.
Frankfort is on incredibly strong financial footing.
The number of projects and department infrastructure upgrades accomplished while keeping our municipal bank accounts full has been no easy task.
Providing unprecedented financial oversight and strategic financial planning means our administration is the first, I believe, in our City’s history that conducts annual budgeting based on a five-year capital improvement plan.
The intricacies of careful financial planning mean monetary resources are balanced with ongoing community needs.
We have witnessed a lack of new housing development, a leaking population and don’t see many young people returning to our community to plant their roots and raise their families here.
Why? Because Frankfort has not yet effectively tackled our major infrastructure amenity challenges.
Our police station is woefully inadequate for the highly-trained officers and civilian staff who enter that building every day.
Without an amenity infrastructure such as Prairie Creek Park, we will not attract young professionals back to our city.
Our wastewater treatment plant is nearing capacity. Without a plant expansion, our economic development leaders won’t have the future ability to attract another top employer like Frito Lay.
These three projects have separate funding sources; one is not dependent on the other. A new police station and green space amenities could be funded with monies we ALREADY COLLECT.
That means NO increase in existing taxes and NO new taxes to get these projects done. More on these projects in a short time.
In terms of our strong robust financial condition, there are some major statistics important to know:
Our City General Fund, our largest, most essential fund had a cash balance of $1,646,309 when we took office January 1, 2012.
On January 1, 2018, the Fund boasted a cash balance of $2,113,157.
Our three-pronged financial philosophy includes:
- long-term planning
- maintaining a strong cash reserve
- investing to grow our City’s overall assessed value to ultimately reduce the tax burden for every resident.
Private investment grows our City’s assessed valuation. The higher our assessed valuation, the lower individual taxes a property owner pays.
To drive taxes down, we must invest in infrastructure that gives us the ability to attract private investment, bring jobs and reduce the burden on individual taxpayers.
When we assumed office, our cash balance across all city funds was $5,237,387.
With the capital improvement plan our administration championed and even after providing significant infrastructure upgrades citywide already in place and more on the way such as the rebuilding of Washington Avenue into a Complete Street, 35,000-plus square feet of new sidewalks, replacement of key public safety equipment, rejuvenation of our trash truck fleet, continuing payment of the Old Stoney bond, and quality healthcare and wellness services for employees, our City will have a projected cash balance of $5,306,585 which includes a healthy City General Fund balance of $2,437,308 by the end of 2019.
With this cash balance, our percentage of cash reserves will be at 33.30%, meaning that if not one more tax dollar came into Frankfort, we could operate the City for 122 days without losing one essential service.
Most financial experts believe it’s good policy to maintain cash reserves at a minimum of 30%.
If we remain stagnant with the same amount of businesses and individuals supporting the same services, but the cost of services increases, there will be further pressure on everyone’s pocket books. There is only so much fat that can be trimmed before essential services are lost.
So, I’ve shared the opportunities and challenges on the horizon for us and the strong financial condition of our city.
Now, I’d like to dive a bit deeper into the benefits of and funding mechanisms for the three projects I mentioned earlier: a new police station, Prairie Creek Park and enhancements to our wastewater treatment plant; to achieve the vision of strengthening our community and making it more appealing to businesses, professionals and young families interested in locating here.
A new police station. It can be built with no new or higher taxes. Pretty amazing, huh?
The interior of our police department is an embarrassment. You can only put new paint on a ‘45 Chevy so many times before things go south.
An in-depth study examined ways we could rehab our existing location (originally built to be a post office) into a 21st Century policing center. We also visited other city leaders who rehabbed older structures not built to be police stations such as former schools and leaders who built new police stations.
From a cost efficiency standpoint building a new police station is the way to go.
This study found the cost to rehab it would be north of $7 million and we would still be left with an ‘old’ building which would call for unintended and unexpected upkeep costs even after rehabilitation.
I came to terms with these ongoing costs for Old Stoney, but am unable to do so with our current police station, given public safety is our #1 priority and the vital need to provide our police officers with a high-functioning building.
So, a NEW study is being commissioned to determine the best location for a state-of-the-art policing facility that considers the next 25 years of growth and decide the entity to take over our existing police station and repurpose it for community use.
Secondly, we need to design a police station that will equip officers with modern capabilities and components to promote a strong community policing model such as an outdoor basketball court for youth, playground equipment and a running track for the entire community to enjoy.
To advance the community policing model, in this year’s budget we included funds for a school resource officer to serve Frankfort schools and our youth.
In addition, I will advocate for money in our 2019 budget to provide rehabilitation services for those addicted to drugs in our community.
I am convinced Frankfort jumped from the 50th to 23rd safest city in Indiana because we have the best police officers in Indiana, effective police leadership and Frankfort residents working alongside our officers.
And let me add this: our police force recently announced their stepped-up overdose response and investigations initiative to arrest drug dealers.
Beginning this month, our officers will investigate all non-fatal and fatal overdoses as crime scenes in an increased effort to identify and build strong criminal cases against dealers.
For the first time in Frankfort’s history, 2018 brings with it two full-time detectives dedicated to our narcotics division along with two canine officers to root this poison from our neighborhood streets.
To anyone out there dealing drugs or thinking about dealing drugs in our community, know this: YOU. ARE. NOT. WELCOME. HERE.
Our skillful, dedicated officers will find you and you will be arrested. We simply will not tolerate this criminal behavior in our community with our public safety servants working hard to eliminate this threat.
An effective community policing model is a KEY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND QUALITY OF PLACE ENHANCEMENT TOOL to prompt job creation, attract more families to call Frankfort home and drive private investment upwards.
How do we fund it? Through Public Safety Local Income Tax.
These funds can only be used to benefit our public safety departments. This is a tax outside of property taxes you pay on your personal or real property; a tax amount that is dictated by how much money you make on an annual basis.
For example, I personally paid $1,408.72 last year in local income taxes. A portion of these taxes went to a local economic development fund and another portion went towards the public safety fund.
The Public Safety Income Tax fund produces $1,084,615 for our use in Frankfort.
We have an approved balanced budget of $1,088,080 which means we have a minor surplus of $3,465 for this year that can go towards the public safety needs in such high demand.
My proposal is that we use this fund specifically created for public safety use to not only continue to fund essential public safety needs but to also issue bonds to build a state-of-the-art police station.
We can accomplish both tasks responsibly BY WORKING WITHIN OUR EXISTING TAX REVENUES WITHOUT ANY NEW OR HIGHER TAXES.
Public safety is job #1. We have a need requiring immediate attention. We have a sound plan to fund that need.
Next up: Prairie Creek Park.
Frankfort must build and expand a comprehensive amenity infrastructure.
To be located on the north side of East Washington Street directly across from Nickel Plate Flats, Prairie Creek Park will provide space for the performing arts, interactive water features such as a splash pad, state-of-the-art vendor areas, playground equipment and a dog park, among other great recreational elements.
Is this a bold idea? You bet it is.
Our administration has been very bold from day one in presenting ideas never considered before and implementing ideas that had not made it over the finish line in the past.
One of those bold ideas that became reality was our Ivy Tech campus.
Ivy Tech provides the perfect example how we as a community with limited financial resources came together for the greater good and accomplished a major project never achieved before in our history.
The implementation model for the creation of our downtown Ivy Tech campus is similar to the model for Prairie Creek Park. Why? Because IT WORKS.
First, public-private partnerships are established; we engage our community’s non-profits, businesses and corporations to put their own skin in the game. Money.
This step creates a higher level of overall community buy-in to help ensure initiatives will succeed.
Just like our Ivy Tech campus, Prairie Creek Park’s creation will have a public-private partnership as its foundation.
We will take a decrepit area of our community and transform it into a high-functioning – in this case, recreational amenity – based upon countless community meetings and feedback sessions that came out of Frankfort’s Downtown Revitalization Plan.
We established the Frankfort Redevelopment Commission (RDC) in 2012 to provide Frankfort a cutting- edge development tool: a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) District. An RDC does not create new or higher taxes.
Rather, it collects an increment of property taxes paid in a certain geographical area. In this instance, that area is our downtown and then through State statute requirements, those incremental property taxes are invested into our downtown to revitalize it.
Our TIF District generates approximately $900,000 per year.
With this amount of revenue, paired with a staggering amount of private investment led by the generous gift announced yesterday by the Clinton County Community Foundation of $250,000, we will be able to comfortably build Prairie Creek Park and settle all debt incurred through a term of approximately 10 years.
This can be done without raising an additional penny of tax dollars.
Prairie Creek Park is our top development priority, with the goal of cutting the ribbon on this great facility at the 2019 Hot Dog Festival.
Our March 7 Leadership Summit speaker Dr. John Crompton, a nationally-known expert on parks, recreation and tourism sciences will be sharing his wisdom and experience with us at 6:15 p.m. in the Skanta Theatre, so I encourage you to join us to learn more about how a project such as Prairie Creek Park will benefit Frankfort in so many ways.
Dr. Crompton will be making another presentation at a special City Council meeting March 8 at 7:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers in Old Stoney. You are encouraged to attend that meeting as well.
The third project needed is the enhancement of our wastewater treatment plant.
The utilities project is another animal entirely from the funding we can do for a new police station and Prairie Creek Park.
This project would be accomplished through utility rate dollars. In other words, the rates we pay through our monthly utility bills, particularly the sewer rate portion of those bills.
Here’s some brief background: the average daily flow to our wastewater plant is three million gallons of discharge per day.
Our current plant capacity is designed for 4.6 million gallons of discharge per day. Obviously, with these numbers, we are on the downhill side of our plant’s capacity. The proposed expansion for the plant would bring us up to nine million gallons of discharge per day.
While this is not a flashy topic, it is a very necessary topic we need to address to ensure Frankfort remains open for business.
We must stay ahead of the curb, especially because Frankfort is the city that feeds the state that feeds the world, given our many food-related producers in our Industrial Park.
By the nature of their business, food processors bring with them a high degree of wastewater discharge. This reality is another reason we need to build a plant for the future needs of our community including helping to create new jobs and preparing for new housing.
Frankfort’s current sewer rate is $31.72 per month for 5,000 gallons of discharge. Frankfort competes for jobs most often with Lebanon, Lafayette and West Lafayette.
Here is a look at those communities’ current sewer rates. Lebanon is $54.35 per month for 5,000 gallons of discharge, Lafayette is $42.50 per month for 5,000 gallons of discharge and West Lafayette is $40.32 per month for 5,000 gallons of discharge.
Our proposed plant expansion will essentially double our daily plant capacity to nine million gallons per day along with updating a lift station at County Road 200 to give us the strategic ability to grow our Industrial Park.
This is how we effectively compete for jobs and how Frankfort comes out ahead of our competitors.
We look forward to working with our city councilors and Utility Service Board members and perhaps even a partnership with Clinton County to accomplish this much needed mission.
Instead of asking “can our city afford projects that stimulate economic growth?” the question should be: “how do we change our city for the better if we DON’T pursue these projects?”
Frankfort is open for business. We must grow our tax base to lower the tax burden for all.
We can achieve the projects I’ve outlined and grow and improve our various types of infrastructure – safety, recreation and utilities – in a strategic and smart manner.
For two of these projects, they can be done by working within our existing tax revenues without any new or higher taxes.
Frankfort is at a tipping point with the many opportunities and challenges on our horizon.
We can go one of two very different ways.
We can rely on the approach we have in the past and hope our community expands, hope we get that new movie theater, new car dealership, new housing subdivision, hope we attract high-tech and high-wage earning jobs to our community.
OR we can choose the other option: invest and deploy sound economic strategy and provide excellent government service to aid in responsible city growth.
We CAN do better. I believe it. I’ve always believed it because I believe in Frankfort and all of you who, along with me and my family, have chosen to make our beloved community our home.
Progress takes hard work and teamwork; two elements we’ve proven time and time again we all do well as a community.
WE CAN ADVANCE BOLD IDEAS. TOGETHER.
WE CAN REACH GREATER HEIGHTS. TOGETHER.
As I conclude my remarks for this year’s State of the City, I want to share with you that I will not seek re-election for a third term.
It’s a heartfelt decision I’ve come to through much discussion and prayer with my family and a choice with which I am at peace.
So, my journey here in Frankfort will continue, but in a very different way once my second term concludes at the end of next year.
I’m a firm believer that municipal government service is about making a community better in every way possible, but that it shouldn’t necessarily be a career.
When I started this journey, it was never my intention to make my job as mayor a life-long career.
Having made the decision not to seek re-election, I feel it’s important to share it with you early on so that anyone who may be interested in sitting in my office starting January 1, 2020 can begin to prepare, study and truly get involved – if you aren’t already – in keeping our hometown going and growing.
I don’t believe you have to necessarily come from financial means to do this job. I certainly didn’t.
What I do believe you need is a love for this city and your fellow Hot Dogs, a strong conviction to do what is best for Frankfort and to remember every day that this job is not about the office holder, but about everyone the office holder serves.
The passion and mission I started this journey with has not waned.
Being your mayor for what will be eight years by the time I’m done is the greatest honor of my life.
I will spend the next 671 days working just as hard as I always have, fighting for what is right to move Frankfort forward in bold, smart, strategic ways to improve the quality of life and quality of place for all of us.
In short, to leave my beloved hometown better than I found it.
Onward, my friends.
May God bless the City of Frankfort and all of you.