After dissolving the fund in December 2022, Johnson County officials have re-established the bridge fund in response to a new state law.
The Johnson County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved an ordinance Monday that re-establishes the cumulative bridge fund. The ordinance passed with a 2-0 vote, as Commissioner Ron West was absent from the meeting.
The fund will collect taxes in an amount not to exceed $0.1 on each $100 of assessed valuation beginning for taxes payable in 2026, with the tax levied on all taxable real and personal property, the ordinance says. However, the rate may change during the budget process, as county officials advertised with the maximum allowable bridge rate and are not likely to charge the full amount, said Luke Mastin, county highway director.
The new ordinance comes after House Enrolled Act 1461, authored by Rep. Jim Pressel, R-Rolling Prairie, was passed by state legislators April 17 in a 68-17 vote. The law officially makes counties responsible for the construction, reconstruction, maintenance and inspection of bridges with a span length of greater than 20 feet, according to the law.
Counties aside from Johnson and Allen were already responsible for maintaining their bridges, and Johnson County had been in charge prior to 2022. Because of an existing interlocal agreement between Allen County and Fort Wayne, the bill makes Allen County exempt from the new law.
The commissioners and county council voted to dissolve the fund in 2022 because the cost to repair bridges had gone up. Had the bridge fund continued, county officials would have had to potentially make budget cuts to the county’s general fund, Mastin previously said.
Though their solution to curb infrastructure costs is no longer allowed, Commissioner Brian Baird said he’s confident in the county’s ability to move forward.
“Johnson County is going to be okay,” Baird said Monday. “We’re going to have a little bit of suffering, but we’re not going to have as much suffering as some of these counties that haven’t done it the right way over these past years.”
Officials from local municipalities, including Greenwood, Franklin and Whiteland, said they weren’t notified about the decision to dissolve the fund until after the change was already in effect.
Months after the bridge fund was dissolved, the Johnson County Council approved an Economic Development Income Tax, or an EDIT, which was slated to generate money for the county and local cities and towns. The EDIT revenue was much more than what was used to cover bridge and culvert repairs under the bridge fund, Mastin said at the time.
During Monday’s public hearing to re-establish the bridge fund, White River Township resident James Lewis said he wanted the decision to be tabled. He didn’t think he would save a lot in property taxes and already pays a lot of taxes for his car to drive down county roads, he said.
Baird clarified that the county can’t use the gas tax for bridges unless given authority by the state. Lewis also mentioned the EDIT, which Mastin clarified was not primarily implemented to fund bridges and was levied to fund road projects more than bridge work.
Although Lewis believes the county was doing a good job of spending taxpayer money, he said he is concerned about the extra tax.
“It just seems like every day I hand over my wallet for something,” he said.
In response to Lewis, the commissioners said they were also more in favor of keeping things the way they were without a bridge fund, but the state has taken away that option, Baird said.
“I can’t say that I feel any less aggravated about it than you do, but we’ve kind of been thrown something that we have to try to deal with,” Baird said, “and we’re not sure where all that’s going at this point in time … There’s a lot of this process that we’re being thrown into that we don’t want to be there either. So, I think all of us want to do everything we can to spend taxpayer money wisely and properly.”
Mastin and Commissioner Kevin Walls advocated against the bridge language in HEA 1461 at the Statehouse, but lawmakers didn’t remove it, Costley said.
Franklin Mayor Steve Barnett also spoke during the public hearing. Like Baird, he echoed concerns about new state laws that were approved this session that Barnett believes will negatively impact local government. Other recently passed laws include Senate Enrolled Act 1, which will cut property tax funding for local government.
State legislators have “pushed cities, towns, counties” to be behind for the next 10 years to catch up on what they’ve been trying to get accomplished, Barnett said.
He said he understands that the bridge fund has to be created and local governments must maintain bridges, but he is concerned about the repercussions of various pieces of legislation passed this session.
“We have to all scramble and come up with a way [on] how we are going to survive and manage our counties, cities and towns … ” Barnett said. “We’re all upset by [these new state laws]. I can’t think of any elected official in the state of Indiana, outside of state representatives and the governor and lieutenant governor, who thinks they’ve done us a favor. They have really hurt our communities.”
Beyond the bridge fund, HEA1461 addresses various topics under the road funding umbrella, with the chief one being the wheel and excise tax. To maintain eligibility for the state’s Community Crossings Matching Grant program, cities, towns and counties with a population of 5,000 or greater have to have a wheel and excise tax in place by June 30, 2027. These taxes are paid on all vehicles that are registered with the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles, including personal, farm and commercial vehicles, as well as things like RVs, motorcycles and trailers.
Franklin, Greenwood and New Whiteland have already introduced ordinances that would create the tax in their municipalities’ names rather than the county’s. The ordinances are written to ensure the municipal taxes are the same as currently charged by the county and would not result in higher taxes or double taxation, officials said last week.