Portage Township Trustee Jason Critchlow says his office is growing to meet the growing needs of South Bend’s lower-income residents, and that requires a bigger building.
Critchlow in January moved the office into what he said would be a temporary space. The plan was for contractors to modernize and renovate the building on William Street to give more privacy to clients coming in for financial help.
But on Monday Critchlow announced that the temporary home, about four times larger, will become permanent.
The township is buying the riverfront office building it’s been leasing this year at 340 Columbia Avenue. Critchlow and the board want to add an event center that township residents could rent out at a steep discount for special events like wedding receptions or graduations.
Critchlow also says he’s seeking state approval to raise the township’s property tax levy from four cents to six cents per $100,000 of assessed value. He says the money is needed to provide new services that are discretionary for a trustee, in addition to the state-mandated poor relief, fire protection and abandoned cemetery maintenance that trustees already provide.
Critchlow says the new services next year could include a new rental inspection program and a program to provide payee services for people who receive Social Security Disability benefits. The new building also will house offices for the new St. Joseph County Fire Territory.
“There’s a mechanism that exists to go back to the state and say to the state, we’re being asked to do things that we’ve never been asked to do before, and we’re required to do them under state law, so that allows us to go the state and ask them to increase our maximum levy,” Critchlow said.
Critchlow says the two-cent levy increase wouldn’t affect most homeowners because they’re already taxed at the state maximum 1% of their home’s value, but it could increase taxes on commercial property.
The township has launched an online survey to gather public input on how they would like to use the event center.
