By Jason Michael White, Daily Journal of Johnson County
Residents can have a say in the future of White River Township and how services such as parks, trails and street maintenance could be improved.
But first members of the community want to know: Do residents want to continue to get services such as police protection and street maintenance from the county, or do they think they can get better services by paying an additional property tax rate and becoming a city or merging with Greenwood or Bargersville?
White River Citizens United, a nonprofit community group that represents about 1,500 households in the Center Grove area, is trying to find out the answer. The group has spent the past year studying whether the township should incorporate or merge.
Some questions remain, such as the exact property tax cost to residents of merging or incorporating and how services would be affected.
For example, how many more miles of streets could be repaved each year? How many more officers would patrol the subdivisions?
"We don't have all the answers, and we're not here tonight to do any arm twisting," group president John Dorsett said Tuesday during a meeting on the issue, which about 400 people attended.
White River Township is unique because it has the homes and businesses typical of a city and a population of more than 30,000. Yet it is unincorporated.
The township makes up about 39 percent of the county's total assessed valuation and 29 percent of the county's total population, Dorsett said, and Center Grove area residents are under-represented in Johnson County government.
Three commissioners split up the county, and one commissioner represents nearly 70 percent of the county's total population, a large chunk of which is White River Township, Dorsett said.
By comparison, Greenwood also is represented on the board of commissioners, but the city has an elected seven-member city council and a mayor who make decisions about roadwork and police protection.
Since the unincorporated area of the township is not a part of a city or town, it has no government of its own except for a three-member township advisory board, trustee and assessor. The township's duties include providing poor relief to residents and fire protection.
Not being a city or town means that 16 sources of state taxes collected from Center Grove area residents go to the county government to be divided among the county's nine townships, Dorsett said.
White River Township generates about $2.6 million in state taxes, such as fuel and alcohol taxes, Dorsett said.
If the Center Grove area were a city, it would get about $4 million in state tax money,.
If the township were to merge with Greenwood or Bargersville or be split between them, the communities would get more state tax revenue because of the money generated in White River Township.
Funding is important when considering services in the township, such as roads, Dorsett said.
Township roads currently are the responsibility of the county highway department, which has a budget about $7.5 million short of what is needed for adequate street maintenance in White River Township, according to a study.
Studies have broken down options for the township to the following: doing nothing, annexing, incorporating into its own city, or merging with Greenwood or Bargersville.
Doing nothing/annexing
Former Indiana University professor Paul Friga and his graduate students studied the impact of Greenwood annexing or incorporating White River Township into a city or town.
The study predicted that if Greenwood or Bargersville continued to annex into White River Township along State Road 135, County Road 144 and State Road 37, it would leave out a large chunk of land in the Center Grove area.
He called this the "doughnut effect" because Greenwood and Bargersville would surround unincorporated areas of White River Township and take property taxes from businesses along the township's major corridors. The communities would not be responsible for providing services for residents in the unincorporated area.
As a result, property values would drop, roads would continue to deteriorate, and no leadership would exist to plan for the future of the township and its residents, Friga has said. White River Township residents would lose their ability to control continued growth, he said.
The benefit of doing nothing is that it is easy and residents would not pay an additional town or city property tax rate, Dorsett said.
Residents in unincorporated White River Township get most of their services from county government, based in Franklin, which is responsible for providing services to all unincorporated areas of the county.
Greenwood and Bargersville both have crept into the township through annexations, but annexations can be an adversarial process, Dorsett said. Annexations are initiated by the town, and although property owners can petition against an annexation, they do not have a say in its approval.
For instance, property owners in Greenwood are being annexed because they live in pockets of unincorporated land surrounded city borders. Many have spoken out against the annexation, but the city council has voted to approve the plans.
Incorporating
Becoming a city or town is the most expensive option for the Center Grove area because of the costs that come with creating a new government, Dorsett said.
Currently, township government has a three-member advisory board, an assessor and a trustee.
If incorporated, the township would need to pay attorneys to draft legal documents, hire a police department, form departments such as planning and zoning, find a place to house the new offices and elect a city council. School district and fire protection boundaries would not change, Dorsett said.
Area residents would have to pay a new property tax to fund the new government.
The benefit of incorporation is that it gives township residents the most control over tax dollars and services.
Center Grove area residents would have their own government accountable to them, Dorsett said.
The township also would get to maintain its unique identity and culture and have a fresh start in terms of forming a government, Dorsett said.
The cost of incorporating is unknown.
Merging
Center Grove area residents would have to pay an additional town or city tax if the township merged with Bargersville or Greenwood. What remains unclear is how much the new tax would be.
Merging is more cost effective than incorporating because the township would combine with a town or city that already has a government in place.
For instance, Greenwood has a city council, a mayor, a police department, a clerk-treasurer and city departments such as planning and zoning.
Bargersville has a government set up too, but it is a town government for 2,000-plus residents.
Some community members have questioned whether Bargersville could provide services such as police protection and road maintenance to an additional 30,000 people.
A benefit of merging is also one of the concerns: public participation.
A merger would have the same result as annexation, but the merger process works differently and gives the public final say.
The township advisory board and Bargersville Town Council or Greenwood City Council each would have to approve a resolution to form a study committee. The study committee would spend about a year examining the possibility of a merger and make a recommendation to the township and city or town.
This group would answer key questions such as property tax impact and how services would be affected.
The advisory board and council would vote on the merger. If approved, the merger would go on a ballot for public vote. This gives the public more authority with the future of their community, Dorsett said. But it also means a greater need for educating the public about the issue.