A decades-long appetite for township government reform might finally be satisfied this year.
Indiana has more than 1,000 townships, which are represented by an elected township trustee and elected township board. The elected officials and their staff are charged with doling out poor relief, managing cemeteries and in some cases, operating a fire department.
Critics say the township model is outdated and inefficient and adds an unnecessary layer of government. Legislation from both chambers of the Indiana Statehouse would pare down township government.
But whether lawmakers find a compromise on the two proposals — which are different — remains to be seen. The group that represents township leaders is more supportive of the Senate version than the House version.
Government leaders have for years considered changing or eliminating township government. In 2007, then-Gov. Mitch Daniels directed a commission to study local government reform, which ultimately determined township governments should be eliminated. Since then, lawmakers have repeatedly filed bills to either consolidate or eliminate them.
Senate Bill 270 and House Bill 1315 are the latest. Both bills passed their respective chambers and are now being considered by the other side.
SB 270 would consolidate townships based on a point system, while HB 1315 would force townships to merge into city and county governments if they meet certain population or geographic criteria.
Republican Sen. Jim Buck of Kokomo chairs the Senate Local Government Committee and said the Indiana Township Association has supported the Senate bill.
That support is a significant development. Buck was elected to the Legislature in 2008 and said — aside from an effort by the late Jean Lushin, a trustee in Howard County who advocated for consolidation around 2011 — township trustees have never backed reform.
Buck said he’s never seen “townships come together like this, with the recognition that if something’s not done, this body is going to have a bill that just says you’re all done.”
The Indiana Township Association “had to get our members to understand that merging is the future, or it’s elimination,” Drew Durham, acting executive director, told IBJ.
“This system that we have needs to be improved a little bit. We don’t want to see it go away,” he added.
House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers, told IBJ he is encouraged that lawmakers have advanced legislation that deals with townships. He predicted that the Legislature will find a “sweet spot” between the two bills.
But Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, R-Martinsville, said there is “a different philosophy” between the bills, and “you really can’t do both.”
Competing ideas
Rep. Alaina Shonkwiler, R-Noblesville, compared HB 1315, which she authored, to President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency.
“This is really looking at … do we need another layer of government to accomplish our goals?” Shonkwiler said at a Jan. 22 committee hearing.
She described the legislation as a “filter” to determine whether township government is needed.
Townships that would be forced to dissolve under HB 1315 fall into one of two categories:
? Their population is below 6,700 (Indiana’s population of 6.7 million divided by 1,000), they spend twice as much on salaries as on public assistance, and they don’t operate a fire department.
? Or, 80% of their territory is inside a municipality, more than 51% of their population lives in the municipality, and they don’t operate a fire department.
Shonkwiler’s legislation leaves room for locals to decide how the consolidation would work. If the legislation becomes law, affected townships would have until June 1 to decide which city or county to merge into. If they miss that deadline, they would be absorbed into their county by default.
Since the last session concluded, Shonkwiler said, she’s spent months working with the Indiana Township Association and spoke at two of its events. Despite that, the organization that represents 60% of the state’s trustees opposes the legislation she crafted.
She said it’s a difficult sell to ask the association to support legislation that would diminish the power of some of its members.
Instead, the association has thrown its weight behind SB 270 by Sen. Rick Niemeyer, R-Lowell. His bill would institute a point system in which each point is a ding against a township. If a township has four points, it must consolidate with a better-performing peer.
“It shows how much you’re needed in your community and how much you’re doing,” Niemeyer said at a Jan. 15 committee hearing.
Township critics have long said townships don’t do enough to provide poor relief and meet other responsibilities.
Shonkwiler said that the point system has some merit and that she’d be open to a solution that combines the proposals. That seems likely: In Tuesday’s House Local Government Committee meeting, Chair Chris May, R-Bedford, directed State Rep. Karen Engleman, R-Georgetown, to work with the pair of bill authors and the township trustee association on an amendment. May said the committee would consider that amendment at a meeting next week.
Under either bill, at least 200 townships would be required to merge or have their services absorbed into a municipality.
In some cases, Niemeyer said, his bill would mean four or five townships would consolidate into one, but it does require that each county maintain at least one township.
Merged example
Lydia Wales, the township trustee for Franklin’s FUN township, serves as a cheerleader for mergers like her own. The acronym “FUN” stands for Franklin, Union and Needham Township. The trio’s merger was effective Jan. 1, 2022.
Wales was the township trustee for Franklin, the most urban of the three, and had an office. The other two trustees worked out of their homes and received fewer requests for assistance. Neither had a staff. Wales said most of the work in Union Township involved writing checks for cemetery maintenance.
The merger provided a lot of benefits, she said. Beyond eliminating the funds needed to pay nine board members — now just three — it also placed the local school system in just one township. Wales said that consistency is helpful for school staff who might need to point families to assistance.
The merger also provided residents of the less-populated former Needham and Union townships an office to visit for help. In the Feb. 10 committee meeting, Wales said the merger saves about $33,000 annually.
In a video call with trustees throughout the state, Wales offered to conduct “merger meetings” for other townships. She traveled to 12 counties for those meetings, but only two mergers have so far advanced. Even so, she said trustees have increasingly expressed interest in the concept.
“I have felt like the word ‘merger’ has come out of more people’s mouths in the last six months than I’ve ever heard,” she said.
That experience, plus the Indiana Township Association’s endorsement of a merger bill, prove that even those deeply embedded in township structure are ready for a drastic change, she said, one that she hopes will happen this year.
Trustee perspectives
Monica Casanova has seen the extremes of the trustee position.
Beginning around 2021, Casanova served on the board for Lafayette’s Fairfield Township. The trustee at the time, Taletha Coles, failed to answer questions from Casanova and other board members about how much assistance the township distributed or how many clients came into the office.
Frustrated, Casanova ran for — and won — the office. Going through Coles’ files, Casanova found the office had distributed very little assistance, she said. The office never fully reopened after the pandemic. She chalked it up to “carelessness” and “real ineptitude.”
Later, state investigators found Coles had taken, overpaid herself or misused $138,310 in township funds. She was convicted on felony charges of official misconduct and conflict of interest and on a misdemeanor charge of tax-exemption fraud. She was sentenced to 180 days in jail and ordered to pay restitution to the state. The Indiana attorney general is suing Coles to recover those funds.
“That was an eye-opener for me,” Casanova said.
Instances such as that put all trustees in a bad light, she added, and prompt legislation like the current bills.
“I think increased regulation is not a bad thing,” Casanova told IBJ. “Proving our worth to our residents and our taxpayers and our stakeholders I think is necessary.”
Still, she opposes any large-scale township-elimination efforts that aren’t based on performance metrics. Because her township shares geographic area and population with Lafayette, it would be eliminated under HB 1315. But she’s concerned local governments would have difficulty replacing the nimble, quick ways trustees are able to jump into action.
“I’ve had calls from the social workers from Lafayette Police Department on a Friday night [who] say, ‘Can you put this family up in a hotel?’” Casanova said. “I don’t think you’d have that kind of flexibility if you were a department head.”
Similarly, Greenfield’s Thomas Lopez of Center Township said he is concerned that already-strained municipal budgets will struggle to take on another responsibility. Lawmakers decreased local revenue by cutting property taxes last year. When leaders make difficult decisions, he said, township duties could be on the chopping block.
A caucus elected Lopez to fill the position after trustee Steven B. Leonard died. Lopez has since been reelected to the office. He came into the role as a career firefighter and didn’t know what to expect.
He said he’s grown to see the flexibility of the government unit as an asset. For example, many townships operate food pantries. While that isn’t a need in the community he serves, Center Township does run a warming center.
At the Boys and Girls Clubs of Hancock County, volunteers set up an overnight shelter for times the temperature drops below freezing. With multiple gyms and cots, the shelter could easily fit over 100 people, Lopez said. He hasn’t seen that high of a need yet. Typical occupancy is 18 to 20 people, he said, but the shelter came close to being needed for 50 seniors after a nursing home caught fire. Fortunately, the flames were contained.
But Lopez said he knows there are “bad” trustees who exploit the system’s flexibility for their own gain.
“I’m going to be one of the rare trustees that’s going to say we need reform,” Lopez said. “We do need to have a hard conversation to say not all townships are working efficiently, and this is something that needs to happen.”
He predicted that reform will happen this year but said he doesn’t want HB 1315 — which he calls “an elimination bill” — to be the method. He supports the Senate version and has warned fellow trustees in his county, “You need to start doing the job, and if you’re not doing the job, don’t be crying when … they come after you.”
Copyright © 2026 All Rights Reserved.