The Accelerate Rural Indiana Regional Development Authority passed a resolution Friday afternoon establishing a purchase policy for low-value items.
The issue was first brought to light at the September RDA meeting, where the board had to approve the purchase of checks for a couple hundred dollars. Board Treasurer Bruce Everhart (of Shelby County) suggested establishing a policy so that he or Board Chair Bryan Robbins (of Decatur County) could make a low-value purchase so that these types of purchases would not have to wait for board approval.
Resolution 2023-03 would allow Everhart and Robbins to make purchases of up to $500 without board approval.
“Whatever we do spend will be shown in the financials and such,” Robbins said, so the whole board will still be made aware of any purchases without its approval.
In other business, the board approved an amendment to its contract with its consulting firm, HWC Engineering. This amendment will allow the firm to work with the RDA on READI 2.0 planning, which was not included in the original contract.
The amendment will cost the RDA an additional $102,900. The board had asked each entity that makes up the Accelerate Rural Indiana region – Shelbyville, Shelby County, Rushville, Rush County, Greensburg, Decatur County and Batesville – for $15,000 to pay for it.
Mason Gordon from HWC Engineering broke down the cost for the board:
“Roughly $77,000 would be the lump sum of that for the planning activities, ... planning steering committee meetings, writing the [READI 2.0] application, updating strategies, working on projects, all that kind of work,” he said. “Then we have two phases that are what we call ‘reimbursables.’”
Gordon reserved $11,000 for site visit add-ons, such as a budget for promotional items like videos and posters. Whatever HWC Engineering does not spend will be left in the RDA’s account to be spent on other items.
The remaining $15,000 will go toward a READI 2.0 Project Award Support.
“So after IEDC has said, ‘Hey, you guys get [X amount] of dollars, then there will be a process of determining which projects get funding, and we don’t know what type of information they will want or what type of meetings they will want, so we budgeted $15,000 to facilitate the process,” Gordon said. “That’s going to be an hourly, not to exceed note."
In other business, Gordon told the board the steering committee has scheduled two of its focus group meetings to begin READI 2.0 planning.
The first meeting, which will focus on innovation and entrepreneurship, is scheduled for 2 p.m. Oct. 26. The second meeting will focus on childcare and is set for 6 p.m. the same day. Both meetings will be at Greensburg City Hall.
These meetings are by invite only and are not open to the public. Gordon said they intend to invite established small businesses throughout the region to the first meeting.
“We want to invite young entrepreneurs, established small businesses like Davis Towing in Rushville or the Runnebohms in Shelbyville – key, great entrepreneurs to discuss what the barriers to being a small business owner are in the region and how can we overcome that with capital investments from READI 2.0,” he said.
The childcare meeting was intentionally scheduled in the evening to allow childcare providers to attend.
“That would include childcare providers, school systems, HR professionals who deal day to day with folks who have childcare issues in our businesses,” Gordon said. “We would hold discussion about the barriers to offering more, high quality childcare in the region, and how can we work as a region to overcome those things.”
HWC Engineering will facilitate these focus groups.