LAGRANGE – When LaGrange County received its $37.4 million dollar Major Moves payment 13 years ago, the thinking of county officials was to spend the interest it would earn and almost never touch the principal.

In 2007 the county earned more than $1.7 million dollars in interest, and the following year more than $1.3 million.

But then the Great Recession of 2008 pushed interest rates down. In 2009 the interest earned fell to about $838,000 and by 2014 just $70,000.

Over the 13 years County officials approved disbursements of $30.8 million dollars. A good number of those were loans from the fund, made with the expectation of a future payback.

We broke them down into three general categories: infrastructure, community initiatives, and one we call “plug those holes” where Major Moves went to county needs that might have been funded from other sources. Those represent choices made in the course of county governance. For example, loaning Major Moves to construct the new justice building instead of bonding for it. Or making the jail lease payment.

More than half of the money spent so far ($20-million) from Major Moves went to infrastructure. That includes the Fawn River Crossing Industrial Park, water and sewer service near the Toll Road, reconstruction of County Road 200 North near the pallet company, redesign of the Mill Street intersection with State Road 3 in South Milford, and extension of water to the Ex-O-S plant on State Road 9.

Just over $2-million was spent on the community initiatives category. The largest was the start-up of New Tech at Lakeland High School. Others in this category were a loan to Michiana Event Center, a grant to the Topeka Library, a grant to the LaGrange County Promise program, and grants to the unincorporated towns of South Milford, Stroh, Mongo, Ontario and Howe.

That leaves $8.6 million spent to plug those holes in county spending we mentioned. Things like the GIS project, demolishing the old jail, renovating the county annex building, making a jail lease payment, funding a revolving loan program for the economic development corporation, funding the landfill closure trust fund, constructing the justice building, and grants to fire departments in Howe, Mongo, Stroh, and Johnson Township.

In the final part of this series we will take a look at the big picture and the impact of Major Moves on Lagrange County. We’ll do that for you Friday afternoon.