Crawford County

For years the county funded EMS by moving money from other departments; the 2025 budget was described locally as the first in years that did not. In a county with no hospital, response time is the whole ballgame. The state's own EMS report says the system is at a crossroads statewide. Rural ambulance funding needs a state answer, not another year of budget shuffling.

Crawford County schools held listening sessions in 2025 on moving to a four day week with a flexible fifth day for tutoring and job training. I have not seen a final decision published, and I am not going to guess at one. Parents and teachers: tell me how this is landing in your house before I say a word about it at the Statehouse.

Duke's two step electric increase totaled about 13 percent, with the second step in early 2026, and the Patoka Lake regional water district raised rates 4.8 percent effective February 1, 2026. In one of Indiana's lowest income counties, those increases take the biggest bite from the smallest paychecks. That is why I keep pushing utility affordability at the state level, and why any giant new power user should cover more than its full cost.

Nearly a third of Indiana counties have adopted data center moratoriums, ordinances, or bans. Crawford County has none on the books. Nothing is proposed here today, which is exactly why now is the calm, cheap moment to set local rules: how much water, what setbacks, and who pays for the power. Local choice only works if it happens before the land options get signed.

Indiana's first scenic river runs through Milltown, where one canoe outfitter alone brings about 30,000 visitors a year. Biologists have released nearly a thousand hellbenders into the Blue River, and farmers upstream can get paid through conservation programs to protect the water that makes all of it possible. Clean water is a jobs program in Crawford County. I will treat it like one.

The Tower Subdivision in Leavenworth, a partnership between Cook Group, local government, and state READI money, is set to put 57 homes within reach of young families so they can stay. That model, public and private money splitting the risk small markets cannot carry alone, is one I want the state to repeat across the district.