Stipend

IACE is working with legislators and other organizations to provide a $35,000 stipend to any city or town that hires a full-time engineer to act in the city/town engineer role.  Currently the counties receive a $20,000 (many would like to see this increased to $35,000) annual stipend to hire a licensed PE.  The $20,000 is currently paid from the EDIT funds before they are distributed to counties, cities, and towns.

The purpose of this legislation is to provide the same incentive to cities and towns.  It is our opinion that the difference between progressive and regressive municipalities is most often attributable to the hard work of the City Engineer who plans and oversees the infrastructure improvements.

Indiana House of Representative Representative Scott Reske (website) authored HB1713 in the 2005 session.  Like many House bills in 2005, HB1713 appears to have died. 

We are hoping to see some changes in 2006 and successful passage.  If you have comments about proposed changes, please email Glen Morrow.

Some of the changes we will ask Rep Reske to consider are:

• Make it clear that Towns are also eligible
• Allow City/Town Street Commissioners non-PEs acting as City/Town Engineers to be eligible for the partial stipends similar to what is stated for the County Highway supervisors

Salary Survey

To assist in the fiscal impact of a City Engineer Stipend, IACE sent salary survey to all city and town clerk treasurers in 2004 regarding the employment of any City of Town Engineers.  A total of 200 responses were received.  Many responses were incomplete so these results should be considered indicative of Indiana municipalities, and not scientific.

To see a copy of the results, click HERE.