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Montgomery Co. & Crawfordsville collaborations

Officials in Montgomery County are changing the make-up of the Visitor’s Bureau. County commissioners voted to allow the City of Crawfordsville to make three of the seven appointments to the bureau board.

Commission President Phil Bane says the change means better oversight of the innkeeper’s tax.

"Every person that stays in a hotel in Montgomery County, or motel, there's a tax. In Montgomery County it's 3% of the total room charge that comes in. It amounts to more than $200,000 per year that comes into the county coffers."

The new members of the Visitor’s Bureau board will be picked this month.

Commissioners also signed off on a study looking into the way healthcare is provided to public employees in Montgomery County. Officials say there could be savings through consolidating government workers into a single plan.

Bane says the study will also look at options for an in-house healthcare provider.

"We could all partner together and perhaps hire somebody cheaper than it is to send our employees to the local doctor or send them to their doctor whether it be in Crawfordsville, Lafayette, or Indianapolis. So it would make a whole lot of sense to have something like this in Crawfordsville."

He says it is important to look for ways to save money in healthcare, which he calls a major budget item.

The county would partner with the City of Crawfordsville and the public school corporations on the effort. Bane says the study would take up to three months to complete.