VIGO COUNTY, Ind. – The Vigo County Council met Tuesday night and approved a restructuring of the county highway department.

The highway department will merge into the engineering department with the county engineer heading the new department under the title Engineer/Highway Director.

Larry Robbins is the highway director and county engineer and said these moves are going to make it a lot easier for departments to communicate directly instead of having to go through entities like the commissioners.

Another change was the addition of a GIS or geographic information system department.

Along with that will be the new position of GIS Director and assistant director. Those two positions have yet to be filled.

Officials say that this is a tool they can use to collect data and stay better organized on issues that they are addressing.

The council also approved a 10-year property tax abatement for Industrial Maintenance Engineering doing business as AIS Gauging. The company will move into the former Pfizer laboratory building in the Vigo County Industrial Park