Road funding bill could impact Indiana cities with more than 5,000 residents

GREENWOOD, Ind. – A bill at the statehouse could change the way Indiana cities pay certain taxes to receive grant money.

This all has to do with road funding for cities and towns with more than 5,000 people. This includes the city of Greenwood.

“This bill would tell us if we don’t have a wheel tax in Greenwood that we would not qualify for about $1.5 million [in Community Crossings Grants],” said Mike Campbell, the Greenwood City Council President.

Each year, Greenwood applies for Community Crossings Grants which is where the city receives that $1.5 million. The city then matches that to bring a total of $3 million dedicated to road and construction projects. However, if the city does not have wheel and vehicle excise taxes in place they will no longer get that money.

“Again, we were kinda forced into it,” Campbell said. “The state is passing a law that if you don’t, you’ll lose funding for roads.”

That’s why the Greenwood City Council proposed both a municipal wheel and vehicle excise tax at Monday’s city council meeting.

“This is the first time that I can ever think of in my 14 years being here that all nine of the council members sponsored this bill because they all know how important it is and they are all behind it,” said Mark Myers, the Mayor of Greenwood. “I think that shows our community that this is a good thing for the community and everyone believes in it.”

The good news is, that if this moves forward, this will not cost taxpayers any additional money.

“It’s just who they pay it to,” Campbell said. “There won’t be any increase. There won’t be anything different from what they are already doing. It will just go to the city instead of the county.”

By moving forward with this, the city of Greenwood will be able to keep applying for and receiving Community Crossings Grants.

“For us, it’s really important that we get them [Community Crossings Grants] because we have so many lane miles in the city, and with Indiana being where we are at with weather changing as it does with the freezing and the thawing and the freezing and thawing, it just tears our roads up and we want our roads to be kept in very good shape,” Myers said.  “We need that grant in order to help pay for the materials and labor to get the roads rebuilt and keep them up to par.”

The statehouse will likely be finalizing House Bill 1461 or the road funding bill by the end of April which means the City of Greenwood will follow after that.

“They haven’t actually passed this bill yet but we have been assured it’s going to pass,” Campbell said. “Our bill won’t pass until after theirs does because there is no need for us to do it if they don’t pass theirs. The timing is important.”

To learn more about House Bill 1461, click here.