In mid August, the Grant County Council voted unanimously to adopt a Wheel Tax on nearly all county automobiles.
Pending approval by the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the tax will go into effect Jan. 2023.
The Wheel Tax is an annual excise surtax on nearly all motor vehicles to be explicitly and exclusively used for the construction, repairs and maintenance of roadways and bridges in Grant County.
Under the current ordinance, Grant County drivers can expect a $15 to $40 increase in their vehicle registration fees depending on the class of their automobile.
Exemptions include vehicles owned by the state, state agencies or political subdivisions and busses owned by religious institutions used to haul members to religious services or to the benefit of their members.
Highway Superintendent David White, who left a letter with council members as he couldn’t attend the August meeting, reported that costs for road repairs and maintenance have increased drastically in the last 18 years.
“Paving in 2005,” he said, “was $33 per ton, and in 2022 we’re paying $74.25 per ton. In 2005, a mile could be paved for $40,000 to $45,000. In 2022, the cost for paving a mile is $85,000 to $95,000.”
He went on in the letter to describe a number of similarly dramatic cost increases to maintaining and constructing roadways.
Sixty percent of the money collected through the Wheel Tax will be distributed to the various cities and towns in the county based on population and 40 percent of the total will be distributed based on the number of miles of roadways those entities maintain.
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