INDIANAPOLIS — The dilemma of how to fund Indiana’s roads and bridges for the next quarter century is likely to come down to whether anti-tax Senate Republicans can be persuaded the return on investment is worth making Hoosiers pay slightly more.
At the center of that debate when the Legislature begins working in January will be state Sen. Mike Crider, R-Greenfield, who this week was appointed chairman of the Senate’s transportation committee.
“My job is going to be trying to sell whatever package we come up with to colleagues who may have in the past signed pledges that they aren’t going to raise taxes at any point in the future,” Crider said. “This is a difficult subject.”
At the Indiana Logistics Summit on Thursday, Crider acknowledged there’s no doubt Indiana needs new, steady revenue to replace declining gas tax receipts caused by inflation and more fuel efficient vehicles — just to maintain the state’s existing infrastructure.
“We really need to be thinking on a large scale and be innovative in what we consider,” Crider said. “From my perspective, really, everything is on the table.”
A legislative task force studying how Indiana and other states fund roads is expected to issue its recommendations in early December.
State Rep. Tim Brown, R-Crawfordsville, a member of that panel and chairman of the budget-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said the recommendations will be diverse and likely to include a gas tax hike, automatic gas tax increases for inflation, more use of general state revenue, tolling and, someday, replacing the gas tax with a per-mile charge.
“For the future, if you look at where Indiana sits, some measurement of miles has to be part of the diversity, otherwise you become too narrow and therefore too subject to the whims of the economy,” Brown said.
Crider suggested a per-mile tax would be a nonstarter for Senate Republicans, especially if GPS tracking is used to measure vehicle miles traveled.
“For my caucus, which tends to be pretty conservative with the way we look at things, this is going to be kind of a difficult sell,” Crider said.
On the other hand, House Republicans, led by state Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, last session endorsed gas and cigarette tax hikes to fund targeted infrastructure investments, and likely will propose a similar plan next year.
Republican Gov.-elect Eric Holcomb, who takes office Jan. 9, has said he’s not automatically opposed to any tax increases as GOP Gov. Mike Pence was.
Rather, Holcomb said he’ll wait to see what the task force recommends before announcing his preferred road funding strategy.