County leaders want to know how you feel about your internet service options.
No, really, they do.
The Feb. 21 Brown County Commissioners meeting will start with a hearing to collect comments about this very topic.
If the commissioners can show that adequate broadband services are unavailable in Brown County, they could declare the entire county an infrastructure development zone using a state law created in 2013.
They believe the move would help attract broadband companies to invest here.
Senate Enrolled Act 560 allows companies to receive property tax exemptions for increasing the availability of broadband. That includes taxes the company would pay on the facilities or technologies it uses to deploy or transmit service, according to a fiscal impact analysis done in 2013 by the Legislative Services Agency.
Expanding access to broadband is critical to the future of Brown County’s economy, said Keith Baker, president of the county council.
Without offering incentives, it might not make financial sense for a company to extend broadband here. Brown County’s low population density has been a barrier, said Scott Rudd, economic development director for Nashville.
Only 11 percent of South Central Indiana REMC power customers have high-speed fiber internet at home, according to a survey REMC conducted last year in its seven-county service area. Seventeen percent had no high-speed internet at home.
“We have to do something pretty quickly if we want broadband here in the next year instead of in 10 years,” Baker said.
“I feel like we’ve turned over every possible stone we could find, from federal, state, local and private levels, to uncover resources and incentives and funds to expedite our broadband deployment,” Rudd said.
Last month, Jackson County REMC and South Central Indiana REMC told the county council that they’re both looking at Brown County for possible broadband investment. Together, they could cover 6,200 homes in the county, Rudd said. But neither utility made a firm time commitment for when service might get here, and neither asked for anything specific from the county council.
It’s important for the county to keep showing collaboration behind this idea, Rudd told the county commissioners, county redevelopment commission and county council members Feb. 8. They’d gathered for a joint meeting to talk about economic development.
Creating this infrastructure development zone is another step in that common direction. “It would be very helpful in encouraging REMC to take the risk,” Rudd said.
“This would be some tool we could use to say, ‘We should be first,’” Baker said.
He estimated it would cost REMC at least $20 million to get Brown County connected with broadband.
If the commissioners do declare Brown County an infrastructure development zone, any tax benefits that REMC could get would be available to other broadband companies as well, Baker said.
The state law allows any existing infrastructure a company has in the development zone to also be exempt, according to the 2013 state report about infrastructure development zones. That could cause an increase in tax rates, or shift a part of the property tax burden from the newly exempt property to all other taxpayers, the report said.
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However, Baker said Tuesday morning that the ordinance the county is crafting — which he hasn’t seen yet — is intended to apply to new investment only, in order to encourage companies that will bring “fiber to the home.”
County leaders believe that having broadband more widely available would help to grow the tax base overall. Businesses can’t work without it, especially home-based ones, said Jim Kemp, newly elected president of the county redevelopment commission. Without greater access, Brown County will struggle to hold onto the residents it already has, redevelopment commission member Jim Schultz said.
Real estate agent Danny Key, a new redevelopment commission member, said that about 20 percent of the phone calls he receives are from people who are interested in moving here but who can’t believe that broadband isn’t more widely available. Many of them choose other counties to live in instead, such as Bartholomew, he said.
“The clock is ticking. … Projections tell us we’re four to five years from going back in the red in terms of people and money (to fund essential services),” Baker said.
Rudd recently testified at the Statehouse in support of a new bill aimed at attracting broadband investment. Senate Bill 356 passed the Senate this month and is now in a House committee. It allows the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs to award grants related to the construction or deployment of communications services or the promotion of broadband adaptation.
Those grants would only be available in Broadband Ready communities, which Nashville and Brown County both are.
However, Brown County is currently ineligible to apply for or receive any grants from the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs until county commissioners resolve the ownership debate with the Van Buren Volunteer Fire Department. Its station was built with an OCRA grant, and OCRA is considering it a currently inactive department.
Also, amendments to SB 356 have eliminated REMC and Brown County-based company Mainstream Fiber LLC from being eligible for those grants because they haven’t served 1,000 customers in Indiana for three years. “We are concerned about that and hope to work with legislators to seek an amendment,” Rudd said.
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WHAT: Public hearing to collect comments about broadband internet availability
WHEN: 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 21
WHERE: County Office Building, second-floor Salmon Room, corner of Locust Lane and East Gould streets
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