Sec. 17. (a) All preliminary expenses actually incurred by the board in providing necessary records, giving notice, employing clerks, engineers, attorneys, and other employees, making surveys, and all other expenses that must be paid before the issue and sale of the bonds under section 27 of this chapter, and before the collection of taxes levied under section 32 of this chapter, shall be met and paid according to this section. The board shall, from time to time, certify items of expense to the municipal fiscal officer, directing the municipal fiscal officer to pay those amounts. The fiscal officer shall at once draw the fiscal officer’s warrant, with the warrant to be paid out of the unappropriated part of the general fund of the municipality, without a special appropriation being made by the municipal legislative body.

     (b) If there is no unappropriated money in the general fund, the fiscal officer shall recommend to the legislative body either the temporary transfer from other funds of the municipality of a sufficient amount to meet the items of expense, or the making of a temporary loan for this purpose. The legislative body shall, at once, make the transfer or authorize the temporary loan in the same manner that other temporary loans are made by the municipality. However, the fund or funds of the municipality from which payments are made must be fully reimbursed and repaid by the board:

(1) out of the first proceeds of the sale of bonds to the extent that expenses paid are chargeable to the cost of acquiring land or the construction of a work under a resolution adopted and confirmed under section 18 of this chapter; or

(2) out of the fund raised by taxation under section 32 of this chapter to the extent that expenses paid are in the nature of a general expense of the board.

[Pre-Local Government Recodification Citation: 19-2-14-8.]

As added by Acts 1981, P.L.309, SEC.98. Amended by P.L.127-2017, SEC.320.