By Zach Spicer
Industrial maintenance, phlebotomy and clinical medical assistant training has been offered locally through Vincennes University.
The recertification of the city of Seymour’s certified tech park will help continue VU’s educational offerings at the Jackson County Learning Center in Seymour. The city receives $250,000 a year to put into the tech park fund.
During the Jan. 27 Seymour Redevelopment Commission meeting, Jim Plump, executive director of Jackson County Industrial Development Corp., said he is meeting with local industries in hopes they will continue to help fund the industrial maintenance training.
That’s also included in the second round of Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative funding.
The final piece of the funding puzzle is the city’s redevelopment commission.
Plump said once he has commitments from industries, he will be able to share the exact amount needed from the commission. The plan is to make a formal request at the Feb. 24 meeting.
Plump said the money will be used for equipment for advanced industrial maintenance training and possible expansion of the learning center for storage of this equipment.
Currently, VU only offers basic and advanced electrical and industrial maintenance classes. Since classes started in November 2023, 50 individuals from eight local companies have earned 93 certificates.
“We appreciate the role that the redevelopment commission has played in that and other work out at the learning center and at the (JCIDC) Workforce Partnership,” Dan Davis with the Jackson County Education Coalition said.
VU coming to the community also resulted in health care training, Davis said.
“Those are offered separately out at the learning center and brought in more space use income, which we need out there to keep everything running,” he said.
The redevelopment commission approved Davis’ request of payment for the next round of a $280,000 grant, which funds the work at the learning center and what the education coalition contracts with JCIDC’s Workforce Partnership.
Commission member Tim Hardin said he’s excited to see VU expanding its local class offerings. He asked about adding robotics training.
Jackie Hill, director of JCIDC’s Workforce Partnership, said she worked with Seymour High School to align some of the first round of READI funds at the Seymour Ag-Science and Research Farm to expand programs.
“What we try and do is align our next step after that along with a pathway. Automation and robotics is one of them,” Hill said. “Using the industries’ input into that is kind of the pathway that the high school is looking at.”
Hill said robotics already is offered at most Jackson County public and parochial schools, from elementary to high school. There also are teams from a local homeschool group, the Boys & Girls Club of Seymour and Jackson County 4-H.
They participate in competitions in hopes of qualifying for the state, national and world championships.
“It’s not just kids going in and playing. They are competing, and they are doing very well,” Hill said. “It’s a cool program. The kids are having fun, but they are learning.”
She described the industrial maintenance training as “a huge step forward” in other types of training being offered locally.
She said it has caught the attention of other postsecondary institutions. Several of them presented at a Jackson County human resources group meeting last year.
“It’s gotten their attention to maybe step up and offer some things, too, so I think it’s only going to expand from here,” Hill said.
During the meeting, Plump also gave a history of Seymour’s certified tech park.
That designation was the result of Cummins Inc.’s Hedgehog project in 2010, 2011 and 2012.
“At the time, when the state designated a certified tech park, communities could recapture up to $5 million from taxes paid within the boundaries of the certified tech park,” he said. “Since we drew the boundaries to include Cummins’ campus since that’s what the project was all about anyway, we hit $5 million in a very short period of time, actually by 2017.”
Plump said those taxes are primarily state income tax withholding of new employees.
“It’s created sort of like a TIF (tax increment financing), where you have a baseline of the number of employees they have, and any new employees, those taxes for state income tax are used to fund the certified tech park,” he said.
While applying for recertification in 2016, he said the boundaries of the certified tech park were expanded to include the learning center.
“That turned out to be pretty important because that allowed monies to be spent inside that, and as you all know having funded the Vincennes project a couple of years ago, that was because it was at the Jackson County Learning Center and within the boundaries of the certified tech park,” Plump said.
Also in 2016, state officials made a change to allow additional money over the $5 million to be captured by the cities with certified tech parks.
Seymour recertified in 2020 and 2024, and during the most recent process, a contract now has to be signed by the fiscal agent of the certified tech park, which locally is the redevelopment commission.
Plump provided a copy of the contract to city attorney Chris Engleking for review and requested commission approval so it can be signed and returned to the state.
That was unanimously approved. “Once we get it returned, we have to file our annual report no later than April 15 showing what activities are being done with those funds within the certified tech park,” Plump said.
