Bennett looks back over his 16 years in office, what he'll miss the most, and best piece of advice to Mayor-elect Brandon Sakbun.
On this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett addresses these issues and more Tuesday from city hall. Listen to the full conversation with Indiana Newsdesk anchor Joe Hren by clicking on the play button above, or read some of the questions and answers below. A portion of this segment airs 6:45 and 8:45 a.m. Wednesday on WFIU.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
Hren: There's so many things that are on your docket before you leave office, but one we've always talked about was housing, where were you leaving that for the next administration?
Bennett: We've got our housing plan for Vigo County as a whole, we know exactly what our inventory is, what our needs are. So over the next five years, I would expect somewhere between 750 and 1000 new homes, and whether that's single family homes or duplexes or multifamily housing to be built, we made a commitment, we've received some READI grant funds.
The city and the county will put $5 million in the pot to take this on to the next level. And so we want to incentivize builders, to build subdivisions, build single family homes, on empty lots in the city, wherever, whatever, but to meet that demand that we have with the new jobs that are coming in, and we have to have housing - has to be a place for people to live. The ARPA funds really helped us do some big things. And then I'm hopeful ready in the future, we'll provide additional funding down the road.
Hren: When you talk about needs, you think about Entek, the company that's bringing in a ton of jobs, but also as you're driving in I could see the casino is really starting to take shape too?
Bennett: And they're hiring people, they've got a lot of good paying jobs, too. People want to buy a house and live here, when the Entek group starts actually hiring staff once construction gets started, there's going to be a huge demand there. You know, 650 employees are all going to come from Terre Haute and Vigo County. So how do we meet that need?
It's expensive to build a house right now, that everything, all the costs are up, interest rates are up. And so we had to find a way to narrow that gap to make sense to get these builders to build a lot of homes. And so I think it's going to be a great plan, it's going to roll out in the coming next probably 60 days.
Hren: We hear about the casino money is coming. What do people mean when they say the casino money is coming?
Bennett: Roughly 10 percent of their gross revenue will come back to the community in different pipelines, if you will, the city of Terre Haute will get about half of that – roughly $5 million of that to be used for quality of life. That's what we had proposed from the beginning, to pave more streets, do more sidewalks, fix up the parks, things that if you're not a gambler, that's okay, you'll still benefit from this.
And then there's another $5 million that $3 million goes into the local development agreement. And it'll be used for local projects also. And then a couple of million dollars split between several local entities. So if they meet their goals that they anticipate doing, there'll be roughly $10 million over a full year of operations. Obviously, that won't happen next year. But it should happen in 2025.
Hren: There's so many things I know you could talk about just being proud of your time here in Terre Haute, we talked about the casino, the convention center... but we have to talk about something that you can't really put a plaque on. And that is balancing the budget after all of those property tax caps.
Bennett: We were one of the hardest hit cities in the state of Indiana. And that's still holding true today, we're having our biggest tax cap credits this year, in 2024 that we've had since 2009. We've found ways to get around that. But, that's almost $17 million that would be coming to the general fund had we not had the tax cap. So if you own a piece property in the city, you're saving $17 million, just for the city of Terre Haute. I didn't include all the other taxing entities. So it's good for the taxpayer. But it makes it difficult to deliver services.
As I came into office, there was a lot of spending done prior to me coming in, we had a lot of bills to pay. But you hear school corporations, cities and counties all the time talking about it's still impacting us, because you have some growth, but then the caps kick in and you don't get all that growth. Next year will be the ninth straight year of a balanced budget for the city. We've got cash reserves. We're in a great spot to hand it over to the next administration.
Hren: You did go to the Statehouse to lobby a lot, especially with the business personal property tax. What's something that you wish as you leave this office that the state would do more of for Indiana cities and towns?
Bennett: Give us more freedom to work with our budget and our dollars. A lot of the revenues have very restrictive uses, it really limits the ability to do some things. If they would just give us more freedom to spend those dollars locally, they approve our budgets anyway, so they know what we're spending it on. I don't like more rules and more restrictions, because somebody makes a mistake somewhere, you know, let's don't change the laws to deal with one problem, when the majority of us are following the rules and doing it right.
Hren: What did you learn the most about Terre Haute residents from being mayor?
Bennett: I think that a lot of times people don't understand how local government works, they get confused, who's responsible for what and know the limitations we have based on the law. A house that's been condemned and how long it takes to get it condemned, and how long it takes to get torn down. That's one that was a very repetitive, like weekly kind of an issue we dealt with. They just don't want to hear that they just want the problem resolved. And I get it, we've worked really hard on that customer service aspect, the 311 system was another great thing that we implemented to make it easier for people to deal with the city. But it's really just educating, informing, keeping information flowing out to the public.
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Hren: What's your best piece of advice for Mayor-elect Brandon Sakbun?
Bennett: Anybody that gets elected, you always think about, okay, those are my voters, but there's a lot more people than who voted out there. And you just have to remember that no matter how small it might seem, it's really important to those people and that person making that complaint. And they need to get the same level of treatment as the biggest corporation here or ISU. Everybody gets that level playing field from this administration. And I always encourage anybody that gets in a job like this, to make sure that you give everybody equal attention.
Hren: Can you put a finger on maybe one thing that has changed during the 16 years of being mayor?
Bennett: We weren't talking about housing 16 years ago, the same way we are today. I mean, it is a huge, huge demand. But we're talking about daycare, the accessibility for that. And we're talking about workforce development more than we ever have, because of the changing workforce needs. So you kind of look back and you say, okay, infrastructure is always important, but all those other things are important too.
Then you start getting the benefits of all these economic development deals, and everything comes into the community, and it's kind of like, so now we need daycare, we need housing, we got to improve the workforce. It's all those things that you couldn't invest that much in because you knew it was going to hit eventually. But it all kind of came together at the same time. So I think we're in a great spot from that perspective. And, you know, you got to have a place that people want to come to and move to to take these jobs. And so we've set the stage for that. And it's happening every day. And we just got to continue that.
I've enjoyed every moment of this. Lots of highs and lows. And at the end of the day, I go home every night, I sleep well, and I get up the next morning and tackle it again. And I think that's important for anybody in this role to do that. And I feel strongly about the progress we've made. And, I'm just feeling good going out. I just wish nothing but the best for everybody here in the future.
