Indianapolis leaders will likely need to increase the city’s spending on roads to receive additional state funding that Indiana legislators approved last year.
Under a road-funding bill passed into law last year, Indianapolis is required to increase the city’s annual spending on roadwork by $50 million by 2027, when the state would match that amount with an additional $50 million in funding.
But Senate Bill 179, which House members approved 72-22 on Tuesday, would increase the threshold to receive the state money in future years. The Senate must now approve the changes. If it does so, the bill will head to Gov. Mike Braun’s desk.
Legislators amended SB 179, which initially dealt with the Indiana Department of Transportation, to include Indianapolis-specific measures.
It would increase Indianapolis’ required contribution to receive $50 million in state funds from $50 million to $70 million in 2028, and then by another $10 million each of the following years until 2031, when the amount caps at $100 million. The additional state contribution will remain at $50 million annually despite the higher thresholds.
Indianapolis plans to spend $216.5 million on transportation capital projects in 2026, but the additional state funding relies on spending increases.
Indianapolis leaders have long decried a road-funding formula at the state level that doles out more dollars to lower-populated areas of the state while the city struggles to maintain infrastructure in heavily traveled Marion County.
A report from Indianapolis-based engineering firm HNTB Corp. using 2019 data found the city would need $635 million in additional annual funding to maintain its roads.
An earlier version of the bill required the thresholds to increase by $50 million annually, but that proposal was amended.
The new legislation is about encouraging Indianapolis to invest new, local dollars into roads to fill the gap, Rep. Jim Pressel, R-Rolling Prairie, said in a Feb. 18 House Ways and Means Committee hearing. He acknowledged the earlier threshold would have made the funds “unattainable.”
Similarly, Ways and Means Chair Rep. Jeff Thompson, R-Lizton, said that version increased too rapidly. In amending the bill, Thompson said it was “a spot the city could land.”
“They have to, yes, have additional dollars, but I want to keep the city on board,” Thompson said.
A city spokesperson declined to comment on the legislation until it is final, but representatives of Indianapolis testified against the more drastic version in a Feb. 16 hearing.
During a previous hearing on the more drastic version of the legislation, representatives for Indianapolis indicated opposition.
SB 179 also dictates that an individual member of a governing body may not designate a roads project funded by state money. Pressel authored that provision based on reporting that Indianapolis councilors chose to pave roads near their homes and workplaces.
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