With nearly all its bad debt collected, the Marion County Commission now has around $750,000 in its economic development budget, with plans to loan the money to the county’s municipalities.
Marion County Commission President Ernie VanGilder said the economic development budget, which is overseen by the Marion County Development Authority, isn’t normally that high, but it’s grown to that amount over time.
“Through our economic development program, we’ve been able to collect a lot of the bad debt that we’ve had,” VanGilder said. “That’s the reason it’s probably so high.”