Plans to merge two southern Johnson County townships into one moved forward Tuesday night.
Hensley and Nineveh townships held a joint meeting and public hearing on Tuesday to consider a resolution to merge. The townships voted to move forward in considering the merger and scheduled another meeting and public hearing for Sept. 2 at 6 p.m. at the Trafalgar Town Hall, 2770 W. State Road 252.
Officials wanted to merge on their own terms after feeling some pressure from the Indiana legislature, they previously said in June. They originally wanted to include Blue River Township in the merger, but the trustee, Ray Walton, was not interested.
Nineveh and Hensley townships’ resolution to merge would go into effect Jan. 1, 2026, if signed this year. The townships would be the second in state history after Franklin, Needham and Union townships merged in 2022.
On Tuesday, officials from Hensley and Nineveh Township announced that the name of the merged township would likely be Southern Johnson Township. The move could save the townships about $12,856 in 2026 by paying fewer salaries and cutting redundancies in rent and utility payments, said Gail Snyder, a local government consultant, and Nineveh Township Trustee Jonetta Knight.
The merger would also allow tax dollars collected from both townships to be pooled together to benefit residents who need assistance and maintain the four cemeteries that the townships manage.
If approved, there would only be one township trustee elected by voters, with residents of either township being eligible for the office. The new board would have three members — one from Nineveh Township, one from Hensley Township and one at-large member elected by voters in both townships.
Since elections for the townships don’t take place until next year, each township board would decide which members would remain under the new combined board and who would be the township trustee for the first year. The members elected next year would take office Jan. 1, 2027.
At Tuesday’s meeting, ideas were thrown around regarding who may step down after the merger. The final decision will be determined in September, and could be as simple as an announcement if there is a consensus, or a vote.
While it is not fully determined which board members will step down if the townships merge, Knight said she will remain as the trustee.
The maximum levy
Much of the discussion Tuesday centered around budgetary decisions that the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance, or DLGF, needs to be finalized before the final signing for the merger.
A hot-button topic was whether to ask for an increase in the maximum levy. The initial plan was to avoid reducing the tax levy because the Local Income Tax, or LIT, could potentially go away. Under Senate Bill 1, passed during the spring legislative sessions, townships will have to request the LIT from the county council and prepare a capital improvement plan, Snyder said.
The overall maximum levy is the maximum levies from each township added, Snyder said.
Originally, the townships were asking for 4% above last year. They weren’t asking for a larger increase because it didn’t look like the townships would need additional maximum money, Snyder said.
However, township attorney Jeff Bellamy advised the townships to determine whether they would have been able to function in previous years without the LIT and go to the state with that information.
“I would just hate for you to reduce the levy and then LIT goes away and new LITs are not adopted, and then you’re like, ‘Hey, I missed this opportunity to get reset, to make sure we can continue to operate at the level we’re operating,’” Bellamy said.
Hensley Township board member Bill Meredith suggested increasing the levy proposal with that uncertainty over the future in mind. Snyder said raising the levy from $60,000 to $75,000, for example, would be good for the township but may not look very efficient to taxpayers, she said.
Hensley Township Trustee Beth Baird pointed out her husband, Brian Baird, the Johnson County commissioner who represents the townships, in the crowd, who looked like he was “squirming in his seat” during the levy discussion, she said.
Brian Baird advised the townships to consider not asking for an increase in the maximum levy. He said he has heard state officials express concerns about townships hoarding money.
“We’re going to tell the state that we can’t live within our means. So we’re raising our levy because we don’t believe in what they’re doing,” he said, “and how do you think the DLGF and the state’s going to react to that?”
He pointed out that the townships don’t know yet what the county council is going to do, and he is concerned about what message asking to raise the maximum levy would send to the state.
While there were discussions Tuesday about asking the state to go above the maximum tax levy, Knight clarified that the townships are not raising the tax levy because they want to do what’s best for the community.
Snyder also pointed out that the tax rate would go from 0.0166 to 0.0093. This is a decrease of $0.0073, Knight said.
Dian Ankney, a former Nineveh Township board member who attended the meeting, also believes raising taxes wouldn’t be good for the community. She mentioned how the areas within the township have an older demographic and are already dealing with high property taxes.
“Raising anything at all is not going to make you very popular,” she said. “Nobody wants to see any kind of a tax raise, I don’t care if it is a penny.”
Extra funds
Another topic of discussion was the use of extra or unrestricted funds from the townships. Meredith asked whether the extra funds could be used in case of a flooding event and whether the township could go to the county or state for assistance with projects out of the scope of the trustee’s duties and obligations.
Beth Baird said Meredith was talking about adding something to the general fund to contribute money to things like the food pantry, for example. She said she didn’t feel comfortable doing that.
Ankney said more people don’t apply for assistance because it’s too hard and they won’t go through the effort. If the townships have excess and give to the food pantry, people will go to the food pantry instead of asking for “poor relief.”
Brian Baird said federal and state government programs that give funds out for “poor relief” may eventually come back to the trustees.
“That’s when the trustees are going to become really, really important, and that’s what the state’s missing,” he said.
Earlier in the meeting, Nineveh Township board member Jill Jackson mentioned that she fears the state is doing away with all township government, and she hopes Nineveh and Hensley townships merging will give them more time since they are “making an effort to be more efficient.”