Okay, they have an outcall to Orion Rules and Public Policy Committee meeting to order for Tuesday, June 16th, began with introductions of my colleagues starting to my life.

Hello, I am Ally Brown, representing District 10 City of Hornets.

I'm joined by Lisa today.

Good evening, Councillor Jarrett Evans, representing District 17 on the West.

We were Robinson, good evening, we're doing district one.

We'll take the far right.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you, Madam President.

Kristen Jones representing District 18.

Good evening, Madam President, and moves District 3, Washington, Lawrence Townships.

And my name is Maggie Blois, District 5.

We have one item on our agenda this evening.

Proposal number 192 revises certain provisions of chapter 121, the code to amend the county hexide and will taxes to add a division 12 entitled state and local road funding with their presentation from our assistant majority leader.

And our CFO is candy standards.

The floor is yours.

My name is Andy Nielsen, City County Counselor of District 14, also member of the rules committee, but uh the privilege of sitting in front of you all tonight.

Um, so tonight we're going to give a presentation that we have uh given uh uh twice already.

First, the last Tuesday in the administration and finance committee, and last Thursday in the public works uh committee.

So today uh we are going to discuss uh current infrastructure needs and funding, uh changes to state law, really kind of the genesis of why we're here today.

Proposal 192, which is the proposal in front of uh the committee tonight for recommendation, and how that fits into a broader council plan.

So infrastructure affects everyone, and Indianapolis has a large transportation network as we all know very well.

So road conditions, rest of the streets, alleys, major corridors are regular concerns across Indianapolis.

And I think as city councillors, we can understand that this uh at least at least for me, and it's talking about many of you, infrastructure is the top concern we hear about from our from our uh constituents.

So while city uh investment infrastructure each year, maintaining such a large network requires sustained and predictable funding.

And as a state capital and a regional hub, Indianapolis Roads for residents, commuters, visitors, great emergency services among others.

So our need uh should be supported through additional uh funding sources, the combination of recurring.

When we say recurring funding, we're talking about dollars that are actually programmed in the budget and one-time funding sources, taking advantage of one-time distributions, under spend, reappropriations, and putting those towards infrastructure, and additional predictable funding, again, that recurring funding will strengthen long-term project planning and delivery.

So uh if you've engaged in this process at all, uh you understand that road funding formulas rely heavily on center lane mileage, which is the distance from one point to another, regardless of how many lanes a road has.

The approach logically doesn't fully reflect the maintenance needs of a city like Indianapolis, where many roads have multiple lanes and higher traffic volumes.

So we are compensated for one lane if the roadway, for example, is as let's just wide as six uh six lanes five.

To put that at scale, the city of Indianapolis receives through the funding formula, which we'll get to things to leads here in a second on that, about 40 percent of the of the mileage that they uh that we actually maintain.

Uh, really kind of showing just how drastic uh the current distribution formula is this weight, not in our in our favor.

So this is the uh Indiana transportation funding formula for uh state fiscal year 2025.

State fiscal year 2026 is not yet up, so this is the most recent, even though we are in the second half of a budget session.

And this is obviously a lot of information, but for purposes of the survivors discussion, I want to focus on the green that you see.

Because the green, that is what uh affects us, and that's the local government component.

So in the top left, the uh isn't that a hexagon.

Um that's the community crossings grant program, which saw some substantial changes that we will get to here a little bit further.

Uh it's a matching grant program, but really, that center lane mileage problem exists in the other two parts of the formula, which is part of the motor highway vehicle, motor vehicle highway account, and the local portion of the highway road and street fund.

So if you're following along, you can see that as money is passed through, and all the yellow or all funding sources of revenue that residents and boosters across the state put toward buying gasoline, registering their vehicle, if a hybrid vehicle, if you have electric vehicle, it all gets put into this formula, and it works its way through accordingly.

But as you can see again on the MA MVHA, a motor vehicle highway account, and on the highway road and street fund, those dollars make their way to counties and municipalities around the state based primarily on that mileage-based part, right?

So 65% for uh vehicle highway account and 60% for 80% for the other part of the formula.

So as these dollars are making their way to the city of Aqua, the consolidated city, they are being skewed heavily toward centerline mileage and not toward the mileage.

As we've been having this discussion, there have been a lot of comments made on other sources of revenue, other potential uses, other potential ways to generate the revenue necessary to meet the infrastructure needs in our city.

But as the city county council and the consolidated city can only act with the options provided by state law, and most major revenue sources require state action to create, redirect, expand, or raise the amount that can be levied.

So the sources below are really the ones that I think first come to mind, and the ones that many I know of our constituents and our neighbors are bringing up in context of this conversation.

So the gas tax is collected by the state and passed through that formula that you saw on the previous slide through those different distribution channels.

Local government, City of Indianapolis has no control over that.

To put in perspective, suspending the gas tax costs the city of Indianapolis 3.4 million dollars per month.

Totally, that's currently being evaluated by the state.

City of Indianapolis has no authority, no role in deciding whether or not we toll roads in our state.

The state vehicle user fees, those registration fees and excise taxes that you pay to the state, they are set collected by the state, and they're passed through the formula accordingly.

The local vehicle user fees, the surtax and the wheel tax, the topic of discussion tonight.

The parameters are set by the state and they are collected and distributed to local governments, but we have the authority to set specific rates again, subject to some very strict parameters.

There's been a lot of conversation about the lottery that is set collected by the state.

It's used primarily to fund pension obligations and offset state vehicle excise taxes.

But in early 2000s, the legislature made the decision to move that source of funding from the lottery to fund a number of unfunded pension obligations that they do to the state.

Some more equitable tools that are not available are a VMT model, which tracks how many miles a user is used that is using the roadway, and a commuter tax, which is a payroll tax on individuals who may live in one county but work in another.

Both of those are not authorized by the state, local governments cannot implement that.

And then income taxes and property taxes.

So really, there's only three primary sources of revenue that we can even lever in order to meet revenue needs.

That's surtax and wheel tax, income taxes, and property taxes.

So if we evaluate what we are currently doing, we have had a surtax and annual wheel tax in local ordinance since 1992, and it hasn't been touched since.

So proposal 192 would update an outdated revenue generator.

It does not create a new fee.

These are fees that residents of this county registered vehicle, RDK when they register a vehicle with VOV, it's paid at registration or renewal.

So we have both the SERTAX and the wheel tax.

I think collectively we talk about it as just the wheel tax, but it's actually two different rates.

Passenger vehicles, lighter trailers, lighter trucks pay the surtax.

You only pay one or the other, even though we don't do not pay both.

Rates must be applied uniformly to all vehicle registrants, so we cannot target and say, for example, we want to give older Indianapolis residents a break and charge them one rate.

We cannot income test or otherwise means test these rates to specific registrants.

We are required to implement a fee that is subject to all vehicles.

And the SERTAX must be applied uniformly to all vehicle classes.

So in the passenger vehicle side, right, you might have a class 15 vehicle that is at new is $35,000, and you have class 17 vehicle that is $42,000.

We have to we have to assess the same rate on both of those vehicles.

We can't go to those bands and say, well, the more valuable vehicle we're going to pay more, and the vehicle that is a little less expensive, we're going to pay a little bit less.

We have to pay the same amount for all of those vehicles.

And it's important to note that certain vehicles, including government vehicles, school buses, certain religious organization buses, and funeral equipment are not subject to the surtax or the wheel tax.

And lastly, I almost forgot this: that revenue generated from these two sources must be used exclusively for road and street purposes.

So income taxes and property taxes, depending on the sub rate, can be used for any lawful purpose.

The government is allowed to spend money.

These dollars must be used 100% for roads and street purposes.

So this is a snapshot of the 2026 DPW budget.

It is not inclusive of all revenue and all sources of revenue and funding for DPW, but these are the dedicated funding sources.

So again, wheel tax has to be used exclusively for road and street purposes.

These are any of the other dedicated revenue sources.

And this kind of just puts in context where the wheel tax and surtax revenues currently fall within the structure.

And we're budgeting, projecting, excuse me, 15.7 million dollars in the 2026 budget from this dedicated source.

So again, part of the reason that we're here tonight is that among other things the legislature has been particularly busy over the past several years.

In context of both of these substantial changes, the state has also made the decision to shift the shift how local governments are funding basic operations and relying less on property taxes and more on income taxes and other user fees to again fund basic services.

Those changes were made in SB 1 or Senate for all Act 1.

So in response, last year, as you all will remember, we took measures during the 2026 budget process, including budget reductions, cost absorption, and the pursuit of ongoing efficiencies to the tune of $50 million.

These efforts are not going away.

And the legislature obviously can make additional changes, but we are still fully absorbing the impacts of SB1, and while these efforts will continue, they alone cannot fully address our infrastructure needs.

But part of the reason we're here is in 2025 there was this bill, House and Road Act 1461 that created this $50 million state funding opportunity and increased local capacity on the SERTAX and the wheel tax.

And in 2026, the parameters of that $50 million match change pretty substantially.

It provides eligibility, match timing, and certification rules, but both pieces of legislation are rather this year preserve that next year is the first year that the city is slated to receive that funding.

So House Middle Act 1461 from 2025 created the path for Indianapolis to receive 50 million dollars in new funds annually and additional state road funding subject to a local requirement.

So in 2025, the city of Indianapolis put $50 million in, they would achieve $50 million from the state.

All or nothing.

It also changed the distribution rules to better reflect total lane mileage instead of relying on only center lane mileage for part of the community crossing matching plan.

So again, the hexad hexagon that we saw a few slides ago, CCMG, local government is still allowed to get matching funds, then comes in a $50 million opportunity for the consolidated city only, and then the tertiary part of that distribution formula takes the balance of all that money and distributes it around the state based off of total lane mileage and not center lane mileage, which is a substantial policy when in the city of Indianapolis.

Again, it also increased our local capacity to raise additional revenue via the sur tax and the wheel tax.

So then some changes were made earlier this year through Senate Roll Act 179, changing the match timeline and annual eligibility rules.

So the required local match isn't quite a match anymore.

It's more of a contribution in order to get additional dollars.

So before, 50 million in, receive 50 million from the state.

Now, in order to get that $50 million from the state, the city of Indianapolis has to provide $50 million next year, $70 million in 2028, increasing by $10 million until 2031 to reach $100 million.

And it's important to note that once we get to 2031, that is $100 million in 2031 and the out years.

There's not a sunset provision in state law either.

It allows for a continued eligibility if the city is able to match it fully.

What's also important to note is earlier this year, the city must notify the state controller by the end of the calendar year, each year that it can provide the match and identify where the funding is coming from.

So you can say it's supposed to communicate with the state.

Okay, we have the money.

Here are our receipts, we are eligible for that transfer from the state.

But and what's also important to note, excuse me, is the first year that we cannot match it.

We don't get a set of track.

So 2029, we match it, and in 2030, we're unable to provide the match, the match goes away.

And it maintains a requirement that the local match or contribution be supported by new revenue.

So the local match unlocks the state transfer.

We provide and certify at the end of the year, the state provides the $50 million, and future eligibility is preserved.

Again, this is an all or nothing provision.

We either get zero dollars from the state or we receive $50 million from the state.

So now to the guts of proposal $192.

So proposal $192 amends those county vehicle excise surtax and the wheel tax, two fees that the state requires to be adopted together.

Additionally, the proposal provides some annual accountability measures, requires the county auditor provide the city council with an estimated future revenues, and it requires that whomever in the uh in the city-county enterprise that's communicating with the state controller that that communication, that that map be made public and be made available to the city council.

We want to make sure that we know kind of the sources of those funding and how the city is communicating with the state power party.

So again, proposal 192 raises the current SERTAX to $100 dollars.

It's not an additional $100, it raises it to $100.

On average, residents are paying about $20.

So this on average is an $80 increase and replaces the current percentage-based SERTAX structure with the flat amount.

We are unable to generate even close to enough revenue under the current percentage based model, which is why we have to move to the flat rate.

And on the heavier vehicles, it moves those rates to two other $40.

Again, these are not new fees.

These are fees that are already being assessed and collected at time of registration, and they are raising those fees to these levels.

It's not an additional amount.

Again, one vehicle pays one charge, either the surtax or the wheel tax.

We do not have the ability to target this in any kind of regular.

So this just summarizes what we just talked about on the previous page.

Owners of the eligible vehicles registered in the county and if they have a time of registration or renewal.

This is not a property or income tax increase.

It's again tied to registration, not a property tax bills or local income tax, and revenue is restricted for transportation infrastructure only and cannot be treated as general purpose spending.

So even if we wanted to raise the tax and use it for another purpose, we legally would be unable to do so.

So these are estimates for under proposal 192 what we expect to generate in 2027.

So similar to a state formula, there's actually a county formula as well.

Since these are county rates, they get put into their own distribution channel, which is distributed to all the cities and towns inside the county, 60% based off of population, 40% based on lane language.

So the $70.95 million is what we expect to generate for the city of Indianapolis, but the table that you have on your right is the expected additional revenue, again, additional revenue that all of our included cities and towns would be would receive under the proposal, and those excluded cities and towns do not take any action.

This will flow directly down to them without any subsequent action.

So again, the estimates that you see on the left hand side is the city of Indianapolis' estimation chair.

And all figures shown our planning estimates and may change based on actual collection, of course.

I think this is probably the most important slide, colleagues.

Because doing nothing does not pause infrastructure needs, it would mean continuing to manage a large transportation network while risking due state funding and facing higher long-term maintenance costs.

Without a local certified match, the $50 million annual state transfer becomes unavailable and future transfers are lost.

Delaying investment does not stop infrastructure from aging.

Without additional dedicated road revenue, the city may need to make difficult trade-offs with basic services and other community priorities.

If we do not put enough revenue or put revenue onto the budget, the next step will have to be a really challenging conversation about where exactly we're going to cut from our budget in order to be this match.

I want to put this in perspective because we talk about a 1.7 billion dollar budget often, but in context of number three, there's only about a half a billion dollars in the budget that couldn't be repurposed.

And those dollars right now are buying new police cars.

Those dollars right now are building fire stations.

Those dollars right now are making sure pools are open in parks that are community uses.

There is not this excess in the budget in the tune of $50, $70, $80, $900 million that we are going to be able to do to be able to meet this to me.

So this proposal is really important in context because we have the revenue problem right now in our budget.

It doesn't mean we don't need to be mindful of spending and how spending is growing.

That's an essential part of what we do.

But the next step is an even harder conversation without putting additional revenue in the budget.

Fourth, there's a severe credit risk of deferred maintenance and continuing to limit the amount of dedicated revenue for infrastructure.

If you read SP, booties, any of the other credit rating agencies reports, we will see uniformly is the largest financial risk to the city of Indianapolis is our aging infrastructure.

And it's hard to imagine that messing with this state opportunity won't signal to the capital markets and to our credit rating agencies that we aren't worth borrowing.

The ability to borrow is, excuse me, is at risk.

That is going to make other things a lot harder.

Remember in the budget last year, we bonded money in order to buy fire trucks and buy emergency services.

Our ability to do those kind of things in the future is also contingent about being serious about infrastructure in our city.

And I want to make two other pieces.

There is no other current plan being presented to this body.

There is no other current plan that is on the books right now being presented.

It's a comprehensive plan of how we take advantage of a $50 million opportunity from the state.

And while the state has not said explicitly that we need to raise the cert tax and bill tax as legislators, I think we all can understand legislative intent.

And it's hard for me to believe that the State House would provide so much additional capacity to the surtax and the wheel tax and not expect that part of the solution here and in recognition of the problem we have in the consolidated city, is not putting new dedicated revenue in the budget.

So again, proposal 192 is one component of a broader infrastructure funding strategy.

The council plan combines local revenue, new state funding, and other resources to support long-term investments in streets, alleys, and the transportation network.

Over the five-year period, which we get to in a second, we are projecting an additional $856 million being spent on Indianapolis Roads and Allees.

It rejects the status quo, and then things do not have to be this way, right?

We need to take a proactive approach to order to meet our infrastructure needs, and that's what this plan does.

Digging deeper on the plan.

Excuse me, this year's budget, not last year, we found 10 million dollars to put towards infrastructure.

We need to continue to find efficiencies as and where we can in order to meet our infrastructure needs, especially when we are asking our residents to pay more.

Because that second line, that is the expected new surtax and middle tax revenue.

So it helps get us to the next couple of years.

But we also have a responsibility to continue to sharpen pencils, find efficiencies where we can in the reality of an ever-changing impacts of SEA 1, but we should be dedicating additional growth, additional efficiencies toward infrastructure.

As we work our way down, you see how the state match works in.

And then that lane mileage distribution is the part I was talking about on the CCMG side.

As we plan on using those funds, currently, the capital plan is unfunded.

Many of the items in the capital plan are being designed without dedicated revenue in order to actually do the thing that is being designed.

We also understand that we're going to ask our residents to pay more.

What we hear time and time again is yes, we need to be dedicating serious attention to our thoroughfares, absolutely, but that our residential streets also need attention as well.

So as you see next year, we're projecting an additional $38 million for our residential streets that would rise to $65 million by 2030, and we would be creating a new dedicated alley fund.

Currently, no dollars in the budget on an annual basis are being used for happiness.

And again, over the five-year period, we're expecting $856 million that may otherwise not be invested.

And you, as a reminder, maybe think, well, why are we looking at it over the five-year period?

Because that's the timeline of the match.

We have to get the match next year and every year through 2031.

And as you can see, by 2031, we stick with this plan, we we would have uh an additional 146 million dollars that is otherwise not being put to the budget.

So, the council infrastructure plan supports currently identified projects, and the capital plan, then provides more than 200 million dollars annually in permanent infrastructure funding.

Dollars that the city and any administration, the 25 counselors, whoever serving at that time are going to be able to build off of in order to continue to meet infrastructure.

Recurring infrastructure needs are often supplemented through one-time fiscal actions, which can make long-term planning and project schedules more challenging, and a more predictable funding source for recurring infrastructure meetings while preserving flexibility to address emerging priorities and other projects should be addressed through one-time fiscals and the annual budget process.

So, um as we move on, we uh again we've we've been uh we've had two committee meetings where uh we've had this discussion.

We're here tonight in the rules of public policy committee.

Uh earlier today we noted we noticed that um we'll have one more information session next Wednesday in district 14, which I'm very excited about for an opportunity for a continued discussion from our um uh community and from counselors, and then this would go to the July full council meeting for the final vote.

It's also important to note that we haven't been working in a vacuum in this process.

We've been working with our stakeholders uh at the state house, um, other partners in and around the city, including the Network Chamber, our unions, etc.

So this has been a collaborative process in order to to educate folks on the why behind what we are doing and the importance of why we were doing it.

So, Madam President, I appreciate the opportunity to test uh to present today and thank you for the time.

Thank you so much for your presentation.

Uh, before we open it up for questions and comments, I do want to give counselor on opportunity to introduce ourselves, and then also I apologize we do have a few guest counselors as well.

So I think that's very much mad question.

All I District 22 down for township, I'm not exactly who's just for the this facility line, so it's one that would be uh in uh in the place outside of the city.

Thank you for mentioning that.

I think it thank you.

Counselor, would you like to introduce yourselves?

Thank you, Chair.

Uh Michael Ballard representative 20, but also really well location.

Uh correctly, text.

Thank you, President.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Thank you.

And again, if you have guest counselors with us, and I do appreciate you all the time out of your schedule to this conversation.

Um also when I we have some special guests in the room.

Uh Madam Tressy, you want to come to the podium and introduce yourself or waiver anything going away.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, thank you for being here.

Uh then also, do you want to invite you?

Uh, Madam President, we also have two members from the Indiana General Assembly with us here tonight, representative Ed Delaney or other Senate uh our Senator Greg Taylor.

I apologize, Senator.

Um, if this time, if you all have any comments, uh Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, that might be on the top.

Thank you.

Is that working out?

Yes, I think.

I'll prove it.

Okay.

The county council actually is a long time ago.

And this is their goal.

But uh I think the process of the legislature, both parties, were the topic.

So, uh basically, we have to increase the tax.

Uh, for some very specific purpose, and I think one of the best things I would remember is the proposal is that your funds are directed to the particular B.

Not just building.

I mean, and it's like form, not just thank you.

This is not uh the uh support for the state that I and many others wanted.

This is less, uh, but they even should have the state of this center of the file issue to discuss this very clear vote for me.

This paper, uh, narrow remote modes, or I proven this is a fact, it's been a fact for a long time.

And that together with some mistakes, I think we're maybe the pre-union as to what we require the builders and offers ourselves, those who haven't gone away, gotten worse.

And one thing you need to realize is that uh the legislature is not really aware.

Can you hear me alright?

Yeah, I think it's a bit of my sounds better.

The legislature is aware of the problems with other streets.

In fact, I would say, and this is a sad commentary, there's a tendency to exaggerate the tendency to suggest all of the city council in the apples and proud of the bad streets and compare less.

That of course is not a fact, but that suggestion is made.

So this is the context in which we in the state legislature have to try to help the city of Indianapolis.

There's a broader problem that's not specific to roads where the state legislature likes to think that it can run almost everything about the city of India, so you know what's up the other issue.

But I have to tell you that it took enormous effort to get this proposal, and it took very good will on the part of some members of the majority party.

I think you know who they are, who sweat blood to help us.

So we've started on the main milestone.

That's what the wrong way to get that.

We're starting on this proposal.

I think it's a matter of statesmanship.

That's the problem of being a legislator, or in this case the mayor as well.

Sometimes you're asked to do something that benefits the citizens, that's important to the citizens that's needed, but that requires additional revenue.

That's a very difficult part of your job.

So I'm not happy that the legislature chose to put you in this corner, but that's the corner that you're in.

And if this proposal passes, I think it sends a signal to the legislature that you're working on, what's an obvious problem in our streets and things.

And we'll begin to cut back the theory that the city doesn't care.

Okay, and that the city is content with these streets.

We're not, citizens of my district are not, and I'm sure that the new comfortable doing it.

So this is, I think, not a goal that I could do.

This is a limited opportunity, but an opportunity to move things in the right direction to get more funding for our roads, and to deal with the fact that the two taxes in question are ancient, very strange, very modest in their scope, and uh to require some change.

I think that this is this is the uh this is the time to do it.

This is a way to do it.

I'm not thinking the right amount of what what all your thoughts are.

I just try to ask you to vote for this to encourage those members of the general assembly to work through it and they help you.

For those who feel uh likely over three up on the low wheel tax, let me assure you that this lower wheel taxes last a lot longer than would have been the desire of the state house.

Whoever was involved in negotiations to keep fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting, keep it artificially low while they had a success.

But that success is over.

The success that's available to you today is the success that comes from facing up to this opportunity, passing that necessary legislation to get to correct the funds forward, I urge support this.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much for taking time to join us this uh evening.

Senator Taylor.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Members of the city council of my colleague from the House of Representatives uh was doing the uh people's version of this issue, and I'm going to get down to the legislative version.

Uh I think we make a great team.

House and Roll Act 1461 is the legislation that was negotiated by members of the City County Council in Marion County and those of us in the Indiana General Assembly.

And I want to be very candid here about why we thought this was important.

For several years as members of the General Assembly, we have fought the battle of trying to get adequate funding through the road funding formula that MDOT uses to determine how much Marion County should receive and how much other counties should receive.

It's an archaic system.

What's important to understand about that though is that Marion County, while people want to make it seem like we're in this unique situation, this situation is not unique to Marion County.

If you go to Hamilton County, you will see that the Hamilton County Fishers, for example, has already done this, they've increased the search act.

There are counties and local areas that receive vote funding based on linear roads going north and south.

And I like to make it simple.

How many roads do you think we need to have two lanes going each way?

I don't think anybody in this room would be happy with lowering the amount of lanes that we have in the city of Indianapolis.

However, that's how the formula works.

So if we have one lane that is paid for by state funding formula, the other lane doesn't.

So we were in a canary.

We fought the battle to try to get the formula changed.

That didn't work.

So creative minds got together and said, hey, Marion County is a unique position because we are the capital city.

We contribute the most to the coffers of the state of Indiana.

There should be some rate be some reinvestment in the state by the state into the city.

They came up with this idea $50 million.

That wasn't a Democrat or Republican idea, it was a bipartisan idea.

And specifically in the language, it tells us that we must implement this or it goes away.

If we don't do this, the $50 million contribution goes away.

It has to be a new source of revenue.

You cannot take from the current budget of the city and fund this program by statute.

It gives parameters for what the funds should be used for and will be used for.

This is not going to go to the general budget of the city county council.

Let me repeat that.

If it was just going to be something that the city council or the mayor's office could just use for any purpose, I was not going to support it.

Now it does give parameters in the statute.

It gives limits on what they can charge.

So nobody will see a higher amount than what they're going to get now.

It's in statute.

It's in the line, they have to do it now.

The fiscal year is going to be up in July or July 1st.

And the state of Indiana has to do its own bidding and they have to say, we're going to give them 50 million dollars.

So if the city council doesn't go through this process right now, we lose.

If it doesn't get approved, I want to talk about one more thing because I think this is one of the most important parts that um I want to emphasize.

There was a roll call.

I can't speak of the House of Let my colleague handled the House representative.

They got way too many people.

I don't know how to.

But I want to give some names of legislators that represent Marion County in the Senate.

Portions of some all of that voted for this.

Carrasco, Cryer, Ford, Freeman, Huntley, Jackson, Condora, Taylor.

Walk Kyle.

What I'm telling you is this was bipartisan.

What I'm telling you, as members of the city county council, this was bipartisan.

Senator Freeman and I rarely vote together.

Especially when it comes to road funding.

We both voted for this.

Blame us if you want to blame anybody.

But as legislators, it is our responsibility to come to the people and say, what can we do to help your situation?

If somebody has a better idea, please bring it to us.

But this is the only thing we can do right now.

I'll leave you with the, and you know, my uh this the people in my district coming in.

My predecessor was kind of a simple guy.

He didn't really uh do the the he didn't have the uh amount of fervor that I have, I think.

But what he did do, and he wouldn't have his phone on.

Um he spoke directly to the people.

You're in my district today, and I know some of my constituents are here, and uh I I want to speak directly to you.

I don't know if you've experienced having a rim cracked with a pothole of the Mary County.

Um I drive a truck, which is supposed to have stronger rims, uh my rim cracked, it cost me $247 to fix that rim.

Yes, I called the mayor's action center.

Uh I lost the ace.

Uh I should have seen that three-foot pothole.

But anyway, the way I look at it is if I can save you from that one expense, then I've done my job as a legislator.

And these guys didn't have any choice.

We put it out there, we gave them the opportunity.

They're here to do what they're supposed to do.

So my office is always open and available to have discussions, and I hopefully this uh proposal will pass and we can move on and have some safe uh roads and have infrastructure that we deserve here in Mary County.

Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Taylor.

Uh, I do also want to take a second to acknowledge really elected Council of Lawrence, Council Boyne.

I'm going to wait to the audience.

Thank you so much for being here.

Uh Representative Delaney, Senator Taylor, if you don't mind, are you helpful taking a few questions from my colleagues?

Counselor and Ed's better take the question, Councilor Robinson.

Thank you, Madam President.

Senator Taylor, uh, this question, I have two questions for you, that's okay.

And Councillor Nielsen, look at slide 16, uh number three and slide 16 about basic services and funding cuts.

Um you referenced in your slide about possible trade-offs, basically, basically services being cut.

Senator Taylor referenced the statute says that you can't use it has to be new money.

So how does that recommend Senator Taylor?

Okay, from the current budget or any of the budgets, and you said here that we'd have to do budget cuts, papers.

How does that wreck?

So, we'll be there, but can it be new money or can it be old money from cutting the budget?

I I think I should answer that.

I think Ed and I should answer that.

I want to make it very clear.

The slide is correct.

If you don't take advantage of this, I don't know what other source you can use to dedicate what the statute said it can't be, it has to be new money.

This new money.

So think about it like this.

This is the way I look at it.

It's it's two, there's there's a curtain here.

There's two sources that you can use to fund your road construction.

One is take advantage of the statute that we gave you, which is says this new money can only be used road construction.

Now, if let's say you did the surtex and it wasn't enough, you can still use from existing revenues to fund road funding.

What we are saying is if you do the search acts at the right amount, you won't have to tap into those existing funds.

So, like put a curtain up.

Hopefully, you don't have to do any more here, and you can use just the amount that you get for the state from this search tax.

I think it's a one more percent of the president, you also reference another another municipality north of us that already done this.

Well, the other examples about the state, we've already done this as well.

I think there's I don't want to speak for any other jurisdiction, but I will tell you that cities like Carmel, Fishers, Zionsville, I've heard uh what's boom, not booth, the Boo County, what's the other one?

Zion's maybe Zions, anybody who's built roads that have four legs, two going each way.

Now, this is just Marion County, right here.

We have our own little thing going, but there's been a cert tax increase in other uh donut counties.

So I they don't have specific language like this, theirs is just a sur tax increase.

Ours, we get a match from the state for doing ours.

They don't even get, they don't give a match.

Additional questions for our state representative or legislator.

Thank you.

Thank you both again for taking time to join us uh this evening.

Before we open it up for public comments, Madam Clerk, if you want to read the statement.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Before we open the floor to public comments, we would like to remind committee members and the public of a few groundholders.

So everyone can have a fair chance to speak and be heard.

It is important that we each observe the following throws.

Each speaker will be limited to two minutes.

Second, any public comments must reasonably relate to the agenda item under consideration.

Third, speakers constraint from the item under consideration or become unduly repetitious, maybe ask to move on to their next point or conclude their comments.

Finally, attendees who cause disruptions that prevent the committee from proceeding from tonight's agenda in a recently effective manner will be removed.

Please remember that some types of threatening speech or enticements of violence are not protected by the First Amendment at all.

We will deal with those issues if they come up, but we do not think they will.

We can proceed to public comment.

That consent, so thank you so much.

If you'd like to be a few name at time, remember to direct your comments, questions to me.

Um, sorry, the first three names, and then we can come out.

He's talking to the money.

Joey Beach, CJS.

So again, remember you've given two minutes, and many of you have been with us the last couple of meetings, and so I do want to say thank you for uh one and ask at all three of these committee hearings, closure, services.

Council members, thank you all to be brief.

Tonight, you're being asked to raise taxes on registered vehicle owners.

But before we do that, we need to look at fair, smaller, smarter alternatives that do not punish families, small business, or residents who simply own more than one vehicle.

Right now, Indianapolis carries a road burden for commuters, visitors, and then goers, freight traffic, the other only revenue tools target the same group over and over, the people who actually live here.

There are better options.

First, we can explore a commuter impact fee, over 200,000 people drive in Indianapolis every day, use our roads and pay nothing locally.

Even a small weekly fee could generate tens of millions without touching residents.

Second, we can expand event ticket fees.

Major events create traffic, police overtime, and roadware.

A one or two-dollar fee on large venue tickets could raise 10 to 15 million dollars a year, paid mostly by visitors, not residents.

Third, we can implement parking district fees in high demand areas.

This charges commercial parking operators, not citizens, and captures revenue from downtown workers, tourists, and event crowds.

Fourth, we can pursue a freight corridor fee.

Heavy trucks cause the overwhelming majority of road damage.

Indianapolis is a logistics hub, and the amount of speed on freight corridors would ship cost to the users who create the wear.

Finally, we can work with the state and modernize a road funding formula.

The current system is based on center learning, a 1937 metric that needs fixed uh that doesn't reflect the real cost of maintaining modern city and multi-lane roads or heavy traffic.

Updating the formula would bring tens of millions to Indianapolis here permanently.

The point is simple.

We have options.

We don't have to raise taxes on the same people again.

We could choose solutions that are fair, sustainable, aligned with actual road use.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

This is a tax is forever, and this is the lowest it would be.

Just keep that in mind.

DPW is getting 10 million dollars as near as I can tell from the research I did for county city landscaping.

Why do we not use inmate labor for this?

Why?

Even if it only cuts our cost of 5 million, that's 10% of the $50 million you're seeking.

Every dollar you forcefully remove from my pocket is a dollar I can't put into a local economy.

The city is funding a DEI office of point of over $700,000 just for uh salaries.

This number should be zero.

The drivers are subsidized with bike lanes, walking paths, and the tunes of millions of dollars.

This should be an easy vote.

No.

Let's not forget from what I read this morning.

Marion County is unable to pass an audit from a missing 46 million dollars of federal funds, and you have the audacity to seek another $50 million bill from us.

So not only are drivers splitting the bill for bike paths, bus routes, current road work, now you're asking us for even more subsidies.

You guys are rushing to pass the tax and haven't even gone through the budget line item by line item.

Some call it modest, but on average, it's about an 80% tax increase on our motor vehicles.

That's not modest.

Thank you.

Good evening, Madam President, committee members.

My name is Ashley Vine, and I'm the director of advocacy and grants with Indianapolis-based nonprofit Health by Design.

I'm before you this evening, representing up for your directors, our staff, and our coalition partners to testify in support of proposal 192.

Health by Design supports this proposal, even as we know that the state law restricts matching funds from being used for sidewalks, bike lanes, greenways, and trails.

Decide our disappointment with the state laws, multi-modal exclusions.

We believe that an increase of the county optional tax remains the city county's best opportunity to leverage the state $50 million commitment while identifying a sustainable local funding source to tackle deferred roadway maintenance and begin closing our long-standing road funding gap.

I'll also reiterate that the state is requiring the matching dollars to come from new revenue sources, and this is currently the only proposal that a city can achieve within the state's mandated time frame.

Once again, the city does not have authority to implement a commuter tax.

As Councillor Nearson noted in this presentation, Marion County adopted its current low tax rates in 1992, and that fee schedule has remained unchanged ever since.

I'll note that before many of us in this room are even more.

However, since 1992, Marion County has added hundreds of miles to its already roughly 8,400 miles.

Freight and commuter traffic has increased, and vehicles on our streets have become larger and heavier.

These factors have contributed to the current state of poor repair on local streets and roads.

Our city also has a commitment to zero fatal or serious injury crashes by 2035.

We will not get there without substantial dedicated investments in the quality of our infrastructure.

We believe that it is imperative that the city county officials pursue every available path to invest in state connect issues that benefit residents and visitors alike.

In closing, I appeal for your support of proposal 192, a public commitment to strengthening our financial result, tackling deferred maintenance, and bringing up more resources to build a safer, healthier, more vibrant Minneapolis role.

We commend the city county council for facing this issue with the urgency it requires and encourage local officials to continue exploring creative funding partnerships with the state of Indiana.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you so much.

Comments, especially from counselor, Councilor Bain.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Show it's all right.

Thank you, Madam President and Councilor Gilson, for the presentation.

Don't really have any questions I asked them all last week, but just a brief comment, maybe clear up some conversations that we've had here.

And I feel like we've kind of been talking past each other, avoiding just saying it.

New revenue does not equal new tax revenue.

It doesn't have to be.

If you read the proposal itself, the appropriation required under this subsection must be new revenue and may not include revenue allocated to public safety purposes under any given code cycle.

If that's new tax revenue to the city that hasn't already otherwise been allocated to another department, I said it just doesn't even make sense.

And I know a thing or two about this because that was my idea.

I'm the one that went to the legislature and originally proposed this.

So don't let anyone tell you that the only way you get the match from the state is if we pass this wheel tax.

We can discuss whether or not we want to raise taxes to get there, cut government spending to get there.

But don't let anyone ever tell you that the only way we can get there is by raising taxes.

And I also think it's somewhat disingenuous to sit here and say this is the only plan that's out there.

For the past three years, Republicans have offered multiple avenues on how we can increase road funding.

I can think of three votes right off the top of my head, but unfortunately failed along the party lines.

So, where are the Democrats been for the past ten years?

Infrastructure has been suddenly become an issue now.

When Republicans were the ones offering all the solutions over the past few years, all we heard is people trying to poke holes in that.

Now we hear, well, we can't just sit here and poke holes in this proposal.

There's no other alternatives out there.

Simple fact of the matter is that they are out there.

We just have to have the courage to look at our budget and say, do we need to spend close to a million dollars on the DEI office while our roads are probably?

Do we need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on the dark trails?

Meanwhile, our roads are completely falling apart.

And we heard last week when asked what was the due process like to get to the point where we made the decision, there's nothing in the budget that we can cut.

We have to look at raising revenue.

The response that was given was we haven't done that.

Which I think is not only a stinging indictment on this proposal, but a stinging indictment on how this council has operated for the past 10 years, where we have rubber stamped every budget that has been presented to us.

So some of us, it's been bipartisan.

I don't necessarily agree with some of the other reasons.

The members across the aisle voted against the budget, but many of us have been saying we have to address the infrastructure issue now.

And what are the amendments that we've got from the other side of the aisle to look at that?

It's been nothing.

Infrastructure just didn't become an issue now.

It's been an issue for decades.

Predates council leadership on this uh council now, predates who's in the mayor's office now.

Readily admit there have been Republican administrations in the city of Minneapolis that are not part of our taxes to where it needs to go.

That's a bipartisan issue.

But don't let anyone sit here and tell you that the only way we get here is by raising the revenue.

Well, thank you, Councillor Bain, for your leadership.

Council.

Thank you, Madam President, and Councillor Bay may know.

I recall your proposal very well.

It's out of five.

I've strengthened will five, but I have a presentation you gave in 2024.

And as I told you then, and I'll tell you now, we're gonna be honest about it if you didn't do your math right.

You didn't do your math correct.

You said that there's a 2025 budget that there was 775 million dollars available for cuts.

That was all by the tune of 300 million dollars.

You've come after other departments, your own plan, preserve funding from the exact agency that you now want to zero out.

We can have an honest conversation about this, and that's why our plan does include the ability to look more critical at our budget.

But there is not another proposal filed with the corporate counselor.

And so I just I take I understand that you were frustrated, but I just want to be perfectly clear that your proposal was mathematically incorrect.

Now we can work on that line by line if you'd like to, and maybe we can put a whiteboard in there and you and I can go through it line by one.

Let's do it.

Show that it did not work.

Let's do one thing.

So I just want to be responsive of that to the committee and those who serve our public works.

We didn't get into that discussion at that time because it was not productive.

But this was not salvation as well, nor is our proposal that is in front of you today.

And we both have that.

The banking appeared Council Robinson.

Thank you, President.

Uh, Councilor Nilson, thank you for this presentation.

Very well done.

Uh, very well researched and the team that also helped me with this.

A question for you, I have a question for uh CFO.

Um speaking about Council Bain's plan, this plan, the administration brought a statement.

We could do it about uh having an idea, concept on how to get the sticky and not without raising taxes.

Have you spoke to the administration about that or anything about the brewing about his plan to do that?

Uh thank you, Chairman Robinson.

Yes, we have had that discussion.

Uh council leadership has engaged with the administration on their intention to uh take advantage of the 50 million dollar opportunity.

Um the administration's plan is not really a plan.

And it's a one-year patch that would, if accepted, would put us in this exact same situation next year.

It also is confusing because it relies on a source of funding that is not uh that we cannot count on uh on an annual basis.

So at the end of this year, we're required to tell the state countroller that we have the money.

Um the the idea being presented right now to the administration to require the spring fiscal to plug up half of the budget.

And as you know, Chairman, we do not, we're not aware of how much we're getting from the spring fiscal until the spring time.

So the ability to tell the state of Indiana at the end of this year that we have the money via a source of revenue that we don't know what that will look like, and as it was discussed in public works often that there's been times, excuse me, that the spring fiscal has been negative, um, I think it's it puts this match at what this puts this mass match at risk.

So that was for in those discussion administration that was for just one year.

Correct.

Your plans for five years.

Yes.

Okay.

Um is that is there a plan or a timeline for him to release that vote or these are just in general consultation cards.

We welcome the administration releasing that plan.

Thank you.

Um your presentation, uh, Councilor Nilson, you spoke about on page 16 the credit risk of the city, our credit rating.

Is there any type of documentation or support to to address that?

Uh CFO that we will it could be in jeopardy, our credit could be in jeopardy if uh we don't go through this plan.

That's in number four on page 60.

So in documentation for this proposal, I would say no, but however, though, uh we do know it's it's a if our credit rate does work, if we are on how we choose the bond, uh, our rates would be higher.

So in essence, it would be costing us more uh to make our money go further if we were to bond infrastructure or uh from other capital projects.

I will just ask that if we total our credit rating is important.

I think that we need to, if we're going to say that in this presentation, we'd have some type of evidence to show that that's possible.

Because I think that we also have our credit rating to a high level.

So just put that in there as a risk, and then you have something to support that if we don't go forward this plan, our credit rate could be a joke.

Whereas to just put them in there.

That's just recommendation.

Okay, right.

I I understand that.

I think when you were doing our credit readings, if you see liabilities as assumed that the more our live, the greater our liabilities get, the worse our credit rating is.

And so uh the bond bank does come before this body and presents bonds for us to finance, they do reference our credit rating being what it is, and that's why we're able to secure the rates that we secure.

So uh, not having a long-term five-year plan uh for infrastructure would hinder, would reduce handle or credit, is what you guys are saying.

I think I don't say there's an advice of hand, but I think that we put more money to our infrastructure helps our credit rating.

I think that take the plan out of it.

I think we should put more money towards infrastructure ultimately.

And so the more money that we put towards our roads, the better it helps us as a city.

Okay, but that you say that, or is there some something to prove that?

That's just you, that's just are you saying that just say it, or is there something to support what you're saying?

That's kind of our question.

Yeah, so uh Chairman Robinson said I'd be happy to get it.

But we can say, Oh, yeah, so we would have to be some type of support to show that to prove that.

Yeah, I could I could issue an SP report that would indicate that the largest risk to the financial situation of the city of Indianapolis is we are not putting, I think we're not putting enough money towards infrastructure.

Right.

So it is true in your questions that this proposal alone is not going to isn't independently going to do that.

We do not put additional revenue in whatever capacity that is toward infrastructure, that is a long-term risk.

S and G has said that clearly in credit rate, so it is documented to this.

Yes.

Yeah, we'd like to see that at some point.

Uh, thank you for it, President.

Thank you, Council Robinson.

Let's go back to a few more of our uh speakers.

Okay, I'll read the next three names.

Uh Fred Miller, Meg Starrow, Debbie Patterson.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm uh president.

How are you?

Uh my name is Fred Miller on the internet.

My name is MF Fred.

I live in Garfield Park, and I support proposal 192.

Um, here's why.

We're already paying for bad roads, it's just not through our city.

We're paying for tire replacements, alignment jobs, wheel bearings, a single pot will cost hundreds of dollars.

And I know this because it happened to me adding a new wheel bearings as probably some of you have.

An eighty dollar year increase is the cheaper option in this proposal.

My concern is this $80 means something different to every single person in this room.

Fifteen and a half percent of Marion County residents live below the poverty line.

That's for 149,000 of our acres.

And a third of households here make under $35,000 a year after rent, food, utilities, health care, that $80 increase can be five to eight percent of what's left in people's daily budgets.

And the average household owns two cars.

So most families are working on looking at 160 a year, not just $80.

In families with kids like mine, where we had to work, we have a lot more cars.

I think we had five or six cars in the time, but relevant.

So a flat fee is a regressive tax.

That's just math.

Who benefits and who pays?

Here's what I'm asking for.

One, I want us to include language, acknowledging that Marion County's economic contribution to this state is very, very high.

That these roads serve Hoosier's all over the state.

I want that to put on record.

Number two, I want to formally request that we have a five-year state tax credit for residents making under $30,000 a year.

I know that's old.

The state benefits from these roads.

We can honor people who can afford it the least, the people who are paying the most.

Finally, number three, I want this investment directed to the communities that are bearing the highest burden first.

People who live on the far east side who are driving over pot canyons rather than potholes.

And I want that put in writing.

I want that to be part of the plan that we said.

Thank you all so much.

And I bring this proposal for whatever that counts.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Meg Starrow.

Thank you for having us here.

My husband and I support the proposal of $192, but we do also have mobility equity considerations or concerns.

And we've done some research and have found a similar program in Chicago that offers some relief to homeowners that can't afford that have barriers related to tickets or other kinds of vehicle fees that then create a cascade of additional barriers to them to be whole.

So we think that this is this is an important initiative.

But we like uh the person from Garfield are concerned about the impacts on our lower income residents and making sure that they have a path forward to meet these obligations.

Thank you.

Quick quick question.

Thank you so much for being here.

So if there's a uh uh a waiver of a ticket or something about what you're suggesting, it's uh basically it's a loan program that pays the uh if they are eligible, um, that they don't have to pay um interest fees and cascading uh late fees over time.

They can set up a payment program so that it's spread out over time.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for being here.

Good evening, my name is Debbie Tyders and I'm in 46227.

U again, I want to thank you all for bringing this to us and not thinking that's time to you.

Uh I do think the council's worked very hard on this, and I and I totally appreciate it.

I assume you remember my comments from last week, but this week my question is: are we just throwing the money at this, or have we worked with DPW to understand what in totality an estimate of what these costs are gonna be to bring our roads up to a good condition?

Um, what are we doing on that end of it?

I don't agree, and I don't disagree because I haven't heard enough about it yet, but in the long term, is all this money gonna put to where we want to be.

Thank you.

Thank you.

William Smith, and Mr.

Katie Hill.

And Ryan Sowers.

William Smith here, and I have a lot of concerns with this.

I would like to know why it has to be paid all once because it's like burden to me.

I'm one of the people who live under the poverty line, and I've watched all of my expenses go up like crazy.

I had to stop getting haircuts, I have my wife to cut her my hair because we can't afford it anymore.

I can't even want to eat anymore.

I mean, it's a total eclipse of the law, is what it is.

And the other thing is one way to do offset some of this when I go up to the BMUs or first time and look in the air.

Why are they excharting what I call a scam venience fee?

Meaning that they target 10% fee for using a credit card.

So that $80 fee, that should be eighty-eight dollars.

It's more than you think.

So maybe you can get them to stock chart into scamvenience fee and lower some of these fees that way.

I mean, there's a lot of concerns out that this.

It's just too much all at once.

Utility costs, everything's going crazy, so we should not have a total eclipse of the wallet.

Thank you.

How are you doing?

Mr.

Keenan Hill.

Thank you for everybody for being here.

I'm speaking for the layman terms of those more.

Let's uh fortunate people.

Okay, I hear a lot of stuff about new money and lottery and stuff like that, which I thought the lottery money was going to take care of about the roads.

But uh you know the clear path that AD, I want to be in that, which is fine.

I don't mind that.

But I've been living here for about 30 years.

And I paid about $2,000 a year to drive with the current insurance license, excise taxes, which you call the luxury tax.

You know, and I'm driving out this street here, this is a death trap.

And it's been there for too long.

Y'all need to straighten it out.

46 and Lafayette Road, we laugh it and high school.

Not before.

At high school, they patched up half and half, which is fine, it's nice.

But they need to do something about their roles.

I don't know if myself today.

Right now, my car is sitting on a donut, and I gotta go to 96 over here to DG Cherokee.

Put my tarot post coming tomorrow.

But this is the second time, two months.

So uh it's just like it's just getting a little bit too much.

It seems like y'all passing a butt on.

I don't know if I'm for it or against it.

I don't mind paying it if it can get it done.

But you keep, I don't know if they're still in the money, but whatever.

They need to get take care of their business and get it done.

I mean, who to say they're going to uh get it done with this proposal that you have.

You know, just it's just not being fair to the people that can't afford this stuff, and you know, that's all I have to say about that.

So, we'll fix that role, and you do have and have like they do the rest of the roles I see out there have you had to get it done on over there because somebody's gonna be hurt over there.

That's my district, and so uh I'll follow up with you after the meeting.

Please do uh bank very high.

You just have to learn about the right stars, Mitch Mosier.

I think that's K.

I mean, uh, okay.

All right, so Mr.

Stars.

Thank you.

Good afternoon or good evening, uh, Madam President, members of the policy committee.

Uh my name is Eric Spowers.

I'm a resident of Riverside, so is the vice president of local government affairs within the chamber.

I mentioned both, because I'm here tonight as someone who cares deeply about the city, and as someone who's work professionally and civically centered on its future.

We are supportive of this proposal because reliable infrastructure is not simply a transportation issue.

It is an economic development issue, a talent attraction issue, a public safety issue, and ultimately a quality of life issue.

For years, both our executive and legislative branches have invested significant resources into our road network.

I want to acknowledge those efforts and the considerable work done by various individuals to thoughtfully approach our infrastructure challenges.

Despite that work, the scale of the challenges continues to outpace our ability to address it.

This also creates a predictable funding source that allows the city to look for reactive maintenance toward a more sustainable long-term strategy.

At the same time, I want to acknowledge a reality that is equally important.

For some residents, any additional expense creates real hardship.

Many Indianapolis residents are doing everything they're supposed to do while still feeling the pressure of rising costs.

Those concerns are real and they deserve recognition and respect.

The challenge before us is that we are weighing in two difficult truths at the same time.

We know that additional costs affect people.

We also know that the status quo is not sustainable.

Indianapolis is not unique in this challenge.

Pure cities like Nashville, Jacksonville, and Columbus have all had difficult conversations about raising local revenue to invest in infrastructure that residents, businesses, and economies depend on.

Like those communities, Indianapolis cannot shy away from difficult conversations about its future.

Well, reasonable people may disagree on the on the best path forward.

I believe this proposal represents a serious effort to address the long-standing challenge and position on the city for future success.

The chamber supports this proposal because we believe the long term health of our neighborhoods of our city, of our regional economy, depends on addressing challenges before they become crises.

And as a resident, I supported because I want the city, I want because the rest of and as a resident, I support it because I want the city we leave behind to be stronger than the one that we can hear to.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Yeah, we can thank you for allowing me this opportunity to comment on this proposal.

Um against this proposal, my uh property taxes went up 22.4% this year.

And all I get from our legislature, Indiana legislature, the only solution to that here is more taxes.

When they when we have an audit here that I saw today, where our Indianapolis uh mayor faces scrutiny from 45 million dollars that cannot be accounted for.

How can we be expected to pay more money?

How can we be expecting that's my question?

How can we be expected when there's no accountability?

And that was just one office, office of public safety.

I don't know what other offices were audited at any.

So what I would I propose is that y'all take a good look at what's we expect where?

Like this gentleman over here said, DEI, do we really need 700,000 dollars for those salaries?

Do we need lighted bike paths?

I say no.

Well, our roads, I have to have I have to have a Mad Max vehicle just to drive on the roads.

So I'm just asking that you look at some other way upon this instead of raising our taxes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Additional comments from the closest, Mr.

Payle.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Uh, question for uh CFO Harris and Councillor Nielsen.

In your modeling, you talk about the uh we have organic revenue growth out of later years, but just looking, and I I realize that we're we don't have the budget for the forecast numbers yet, but in your modeling, what numbers of new uh tax revenue growth from property tax income tax.

If we did nothing, what number is that?

If we hypothetically, we held all spending flat, uh, what would the organic tax revenue growth be?

So if we were to look like year over year, well, it's hard to tease out from that because we're on the again around the controller's office.

Um, but I think what we can see from the budget is those revenues are growing pre-SB1 or growing about 10% per year.

Um so if you did the NAFTA math on the income tax side, you'd be talking about 16 million, and on the property tax side, we obviously saw um flatline property tax growth.

So I predicting property tax revenues is very challenging and less we went.

So that was we're standing with flat line, and we're we don't know how that's going to change year over year because we're still exploiting that change.

But on the income tax side, it's been about 10% per year.

Okay, so I guess am I doing the napkin, as you say correctly, if we held everything flat, and I realize there's there's labor agreements, and then hypothetically, if we held things flat, we would have 160 million, and for next year we would be 50 million, correct?

Well, not next year, I'm sorry, I thought you were talking about.

No, I think about 27.

Growth off of um by the change.

So it's over the 50 million, yes, yeah, yeah.

If we not even if we cut it simply, say everybody has the net whole flat.

And it much like last year, I think there are agencies that continue to grow uh for various reasons, but the hypothetically, net of all that alone, we could go back and say, hey, I need the general three everybody cut four percent so that the total lands flat, but we could hypothetically come up with the $50 million for next year from that organic rookie growth without I guess also true cuts, like not going in and cutting the whole department.

And I think I think from the hypothetical counselor gay bill, I think that's the first point I was bringing up earlier in revenue that is that actually exists to be repurposed for that.

I think that's as you know, our income tax is a component of five separate subjects, right?

Of which one is the gender of general expenditure rate, but the second largest of public safety.

So as we're narrowing that focus, we're we're talking something closer to and you have a written down one moment.

That really the flexible income tax purpose in the 2026 budget was 313.

Right.

So uh and those dollars are obviously being used to also offset contracts and other contractual obligations.

Um that that was easy to have in the presentation that it's uh looking at from the entire bucket, can make sense, but I think we have to look at it from the most flexible source because we can't use public safety taxes, you know, for infrastructure.

We can't use uh public safety portion of the property tax research regularly in order to do that as well.

But but I guess okay, so I understand that you but under that model that's still 31 million in organic income tax growth the way that would be forecasting.

So we hypothetically that takes this from a $50 million question down to potentially we need we could now we might be talking about identifying nineteen million in savings on the five hundred million in flexible design.

Is that fair to say?

Yes, assuming that it can that those sub rates are not being used to subsidize things like solid waste, which we which we all know we're doing, right?

Uh used to offset um the public safety budget is the the I would say the the traditional public safety budget of uh fire and police are very much subsidized for the general expenditure rates as well.

Um so yeah, I mean, I guess from a theoretical side, yes, from a practical side, we have a lot of we needed that obviously the budget process.

Thank you so much.

Uh Matt, if you would like to, you know, Mars speaking to the DPW plan, yes.

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh Ms.

Allison, I wanted to um uh talk about your question that you asked about our public works and the road funding.

Would they be able to handle um the extra revenue and the projects?

So right now in public works and in our budget, we talked about our capital plan, our five-year capital plan, and we're not out of public, we talk about those projects out of the next five years, and right now they're not fully funded.

So part of this plan would make sure that they are fully funded.

And then also as counselors, one of the things that we're about for the residential roads uh as uh you heard in the presentation.

And so before we before we start this process, one of the first things that we did um was set down and asking like this under 25 to make sure one of our questions for them was if we have all this revenue, can you handle this work?

If we throw all of this at you, will you be able to handle it?

Because if we thought it's a lot of money, we can't handle the work we're putting with it.

Um, they assured us absolutely, they absolutely can handle the work.

They want to make sure that they can do this for us.

Um, and they were pleased, they want the support.

They're thrilled that we can support them.

So I think they want to do that work for us, including as you heard in the presentation, alleys.

Some of our counselors who have alleys in their district is a big deal.

Um, so we can ask them about that.

So they assured us that they absolutely can handle that workflow and it's a big deal to charge that work for their members.

So at the 725 um was a very um, it was a very big deal to screw that one over.

So I guess that can be a network.

But it's enough money to fix the whole problem.

I understand that.

So I would allow you to respond to that.

Um, but please don't this uh should close to the audience.

No, I think Council may work on that.

Uh that would hardly proposal.

Oh no, um, it's it'll never be enough money to fix the problem.

That's why over the years the exponential money grows.

Um, no, it the first year will not be enough, it will not be enough to fix the problem.

The first year over the second year.

I mean, the maintenance is growing.

Um, but it will put a document about it and we'll start to make conference.

So, I hope that helps.

Thank you.

Councillor Brown.

Thank you.

Um, I'm not sure if this is a question for you, M CFO or even Chairwoman Jones.

So, this year, uh, unbeknownst to us when we were planning this year's budget, right?

We had TAC IRAN.

Hold on, buddy.

We had tech Iran, and then our gas prices went up, right?

So the governor stepped in and did this gas tax holiday.

So it's been 60 days, going to be 90, probably, which is all he's allowed before our lawmakers get called back in.

So we're looking at roughly a ten million dollar shortfall because every month that people don't pay gas tax, and I'm not saying I'm not here advocating for people to pay more money.

I want people to understand that I'm a mom, I'm a business owner, I'm one of the very few renters on this council and have watched my rent go up a thousand to two thousand dollars every single year.

I've served on this council.

I feel this a lot.

So I don't take this lightly.

I really don't.

How are we going to make up that 10 million?

And then what happens for what we currently budgeted out, and then what happens if they get called back in?

The gas tax is kept off for the rest of the year because Braun feels like it makes him feel good and feels popular, and that happens, and then we're out eight months, and we're looking at $30 million deficit in our DPW.

And then how do we even get close to covering the funds that we need to let alone then going forward?

I know it's a lot of what ifs, but we're living in a world where we're constantly looking at these what ifs.

I mean, that's if everyone tomorrow decided they didn't want cars and weren't going to pay license plates, all this money would go away, right?

So like there's a lot of what ifs, but this is something that's very concerning to me.

Because that's $10 million that we had budgeted to be spent this year that we know we're not going to get.

So we're already going to have a budget that fall in DPW.

What does that look like as we go forward and what happens?

Because if we're going to talk about money going into DTW, we need to also say the state is given and the state take it away.

This is the ones.

It doesn't matter.

I'm sorry, guys.

I didn't know we were directly vote.

But the chair will take the brown.

Yeah, so part of the uh spring fiscal was uh in recognition of that exact problem that you've identified.

So the spring fiscal this past year was the $34 million distribution.

We set that uh at least $16 million, because at the time we thought it would be $7 million to be from the gas tax, and there's an additional $12 million that are part of the annual operating budget that we're also funding.

So we took that money and we put it aside to address the exact concern that you brought up, make sure that the current capital plan for 2026 is fully funded.

But we'll look kind of net of those unknowns.

We started the spring fiscal and from introduction, we didn't know there should be a suspension.

But now there's only about 19 million dollars left over of the spring fiscal in order to do the other batches for infrastructure to fund other services.

Um we've fenced off funding in hopes that it is enough.

Otherwise, we would have to cut projects or tap fund balance in order to to shore up those projects.

And what exactly does the gas tax money go into what funding stream three?

Yeah, yeah.

So is it because it's it's global roads, is it major thoroughfares?

Because if this is all it makes everything much more difficult when the money that we already plan on can be cut out of the needs.

And the road funding formula, it's passed through the uh motor vehicle highway count and the local streets and bridges program.

Um for DPW purposes, it has similar restrictions, and that it has to be used for uh infrastructure projects, and so they're they're they're apportioning that uh within the budget, as you know we funded the character level, not the line item level, and so they are some of those may be used for thoroughfares, some of those may be used for other part of the structure purposes, but specific projects, that would be that would be a better question, which we have.

Okay, might be follow up with the thank you.

Initial questions, comments for counselors, counselor.

Yes, yes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, my question comes from talking to constituents, and the first question that they often ask is how much are gonna am I gonna have to pay?

And I feel like if that might be answered with that, or you can pick the calculator on the mining and figure out how much you're paying currently to get to what your actual increase is going to be.

But the second question is what does that mean for me?

Is this the street right outside my neighborhood going to get paved or some iteration of that question?

And so without being able to answer, you know, every run by road here.

I'm trying to generalize that question by saying, okay, what's DPW's budget or 20 or road budget for 2027?

Um, and what does it look like with this new hundred million, and what does it look like without and is that is that a 30% increase, is that a 50% increase, just to try to quantify what the outcome is here.

And I know again, we're gonna have a hundred million on year one, and by the end of it, it'll be 150, but I'm just trying to try to start somewhere with trying to quantify what this means to the average taxpayer in terms of road thing, and I feel like I'm getting a little bit to what this woman back here was saying as I understood her question, um, just trying to get to the outcome of the road funding.

And again, I don't know, chairs a little bit.

Um just trying to answer that question.

Thank you.

Um, so if we look at the I have a counselor, I'm sorry, I thought I brought my budget book with me, so it's not just uh state, but I do have a picture of the capital plan on the and then also while you're doing that, and I don't try not to get too much as the chair of this committee, but also keep in mind that we are not allowed to have any language that speaks to equity or any language that speaks to a specific district.

And so while I would love to go back and tell my district that they're gonna get Lafayette Road uh pay from 30 strength out, you know, if we are no longer allowed to use that type of language thanks to our friends at the other window market, right?

So again, I know he's gonna respond to that, but then that would be while we're over at the city house that we got our hands slapped, so multiple times.

Like this using the word equity when it comes to the city head council districts is definitely not allowed.

And I actually while he's looking, I actually need that I've stated that point to my colleagues because everybody thinks that the other district gets more funding than they do.

It doesn't matter what side of the city that you're on, and so being able to say we have to follow this very detailed formula that involves points and weighted points and if you know we don't get to pick anymore.

So I actually think that's a helpful point going forward, like hey, it's it's done by math and the formula and not by somebody sitting in the chair choosing.

It would make things a lot easier if we could, as individual counselors think to what's being done specifically in our district, but again, we're not given that opportunity uh from our state legislators.

Uh, so do you want to respond?

Yes.

Uh so counselor Delaney, um, the 2026 capital plan or the capital plan adopted as part of the 2026 question, excuse me.

That was before that was before Senate Bill 179, where there are the larger uh contribution requirements now.

So I just want to put a big caveat on that as well, just focus on 2027 for purposes of the question.

Um next year they're expecting uh they're projecting in the capital plan, so they are DW's currently in the planning process that that there will be 220 million dollars in budgetary resources available.

That's inclusive of the hundred million dollars from the state.

So uh 100 million dollars is part of this the state and the local batch.

So if you took that out, there's only 120 million dollars.

Um what what we have here is we are funding it in the tune of 150 million dollars additional next year, so that that baseline funding would rise by an additional 50 million dollars.

Um it's a little bit kind of accurate on the gene to look to the out years, but in perspective, we are currently projecting out for 2029, and it's in the old batch piece, that there was only gonna be 168,000 available for capital expenses, of which a hundred million of that was the state and local match.

So it I think it's really showing how there is a there is a cliff for about a better way of looking at this.

Um that begins uh actually this next year with the last bond that's starting to roll off.

There's some additional smaller bond proceeds, but the larger bond that was taken out, I think, in 21, uh counselor keeping me honest here, uh, our dropping off.

So uh thank you.

That's very helpful.

Okay, Councilman.

Councillor May.

You met our chair.

I'll take you up on your offer to keep the honesty.

Yeah, yeah.

Um I can I hope everyone knows that I have a tremendous amount of respect for Councillor Nielsen, I know he's done a tremendous amount of work here.

Um, just one offer for point of clarity, 775 million was never mentioned in the proposal itself.

May have been referenced in a presentation, and that's a number that comes from our controllers' office and council office, but that was a fictitious number.

Number of the point is two hundred and forty-five, which is what I would have allocated for our roads and infrastructure needs.

But it sounded like he was uh maybe correct the record, but it sounded like you said that you didn't think that it was productive to have that conversation two years ago.

Oh, thank you, Councilor.

I I I I was uh being being focused on disagreements on on some of the mathematical model, but I I do believe that it was important conversation and looking at looking at spending.

And as we have discussed at length, considered on a number of committees together, being able to meet a billion dollar infrastructure track law can't be done with can't be done with just raising raising raising taxes and all this analysis of the problem and all the look at the solution.

So I did appreciate the you know attempt to bring in that conversation forward.

Okay, um, do you just want to say I also appreciate the fact that uh Council Democrats are now looking at the issue?

Welcome to the club of trying to be capital and stuff like that.

Counselor uh is on a I'm sorry, I was I can't see another number of the floor is yours.

For as big as my head is uh, sorry, sir, that's that's just fine.

Thank you, man.

Multiple questions, I'm sorry.

I want to thank uh I happen to see some of my multiple Southsiders here in the audience and uh appreciate the participation, this conversation and so many important issues uh on our side of town.

Um some of my questions might be a little bit repetitive, so if that serves as annoyance to some folks here, uh I appreciate your patience.

Uh Councilman Nielsen, I appreciate the work that you obviously committed to this, and uh, and the presentation that we're making.

Um I just want to make sure I understand a couple of things correctly.

Is it true to say that uh the Indianapolis Mayor has signaled his opposition to this proposal?

Yes.

Is it true that B.

This mayor, who has signaled this opposition, has indicated that he believes there's additional revenue that can be found in applying to rooms that does not have to come from this funding.

Yes, has you now this mayor in conversations with council democrats indicated where those dollars would be found?

Yes, particularly sure.

So uh so uh in line with Chairman Rock's question, thank you, Councillor Ana.

Um, it continues the work that we did in the 2026 budget, which was to take the 10 million and we carry that forward and puts another 10 million.

In fact, that's when you see where we agree.

Um, going to the slide that has the table, which I have the number off the top of my head.

18.

Thank you very much.

Um that's where if you would if that is uh uh B3, um that's where that 20 million comes from.

That's where there's a that's where there's agreement.

Um that's 20 of the 50 million dollars.

The remainder comes from 25 million dollars from the spring supplemental in 2027, and the remaining five million dollars would come from strong life that they're proposing that would come from this law.

What consultation or what concern would you have in giving the mayor's office preference in finding the solution to this challenge that was because I don't believe it will work.

I don't believe that it works and um we have to tell the state at the end of this calendar year that we can do those things.

What's I don't want to take too much and I don't want to get into this too much so I go through additional questions just to my last question on this matter.

What is it that the console administration and his team of experts included the city control and council Democrats and staff what is it that you differ on specifically why don't we believe that proposition because in order to tell the state at the end of the year that we have money in the spring fiscal you would have to logically know how much money is in the state of one so I don't know how to communicate with the state at the end of the year that money will be available in March and we don't know when that money would be available.

I think that's that's one piece secondarily on the stormwater front we have to guarantee that the stormwater revenues stormwater resources were for projects that had a stormwater component.

And if that's the case then we're probably also taking away from an existing stormwater project in order to to fund that in the June of the June of 500 was the Hawks administration uh invited to this meeting or any other public meeting to provide additional uh explanation of their what would be their resolution to this matter yes they have been invited in all capacity and publicly to attend one of the pre meetings right now and then invited next Monday to come to 975 and so to this to this day they have the time to say thank you um you know I think one of the problems one of the main problems I have with this and I appreciate the work that's been done I don't think that you can minimize that by any stretch of the imagination when you talk about a big influx of dollars into the department public force it's something we all would like to see obviously from local city leaders to state leaders from all sides of the aisle all sides of the county it's disappointing that we haven't seen the funding formula change uh the way that it thought to be but that is where we stand today but I don't have much confidence in the department currently to be able to take those dollars and deploy them in a timely and efficient way.

And I'll give you an example I have been waiting for five years four to five years on what reconstruction project I think the council was supposed to plan the drinking game I proposed as one committee meeting having said what for reconstruction project 180 times the point is that was a paid for construction project for South residents one of the most major capital plans uh projects that we've seen and it got delayed by four or five years that's nothing to do with counseling it's just making a comment and to find out as a counselor why it was late was totally ridiculous and insulting to me and my constituents so I have a trust problem with the department's ability to even deploy dollars effectively that we give them today just to personal experience I think they do a great job out of it and I think that the hardworking folks on snowpiles and solid waste collection uh vehicles and I'm not criticizing the people, I'm criticizing the management of the department of Public Works in some respects on the south side and their lack of response to addressing our issues and paid for them.

So I would like to hear from PPW at some point to better explain a general record of their commitment to uh ensuring these dollars uh can be deployed in an effective way.

And by the way, there's no one I trust more on the other side than Council Jones, Charlie Jones.

And so I believe that when she communicated that's something EPW has committed to, I think that they didn't commit to it, I use my PFA and see how they can make that work.

It also was mentioned, Councillor Ban, other municipalities in areas such as Hamilton County have also added this type of tax into their fold.

Obviously, as the senator knows that we cannot include the match portion of the park that we exclusively have provided to us.

Do we have a figure on what those other municipalities would reach their feet?

I think you councillor I.

So the other municipalities, I'm gonna say municipalities and counties, right?

Um they are capped at different rates.

They can only go to mine.

If to give you an example, and many of those municipalities have not had surtaxes or real taxes for a very long time.

Uh, the kind of the web of how the legislature has changed the law of the past couple years is um has created some instances where some municipalities, Avon, for example, they pay both the county tax and municipal, right?

In the tune of, I think 40 on each, right?

But then you have the community like Fishers, where they've implemented a $25 uh rate, but there is not a county rate.

The Johnson County.

Johnson County has a county rate.

City of Greenwood has since implemented a sur tax which will preempt the county rate.

So it it actually varies almost when you go to county by county.

There are some examples where there is stacking.

There is examples where no one is doing anything, uh and there are examples of where local county councils or city councils and mayors are actively having those conversations, uh, part of which is to become eligible for the CCMG matching training program.

Sure, I appreciate that.

But you know, to use um the idea that other municipalities and free countries are doing these things is to compare apples to follow them off.

This is nothing to be useful.

So I would just caution folks when they get up to the microphone to uh not use it as an example because we're just vastly different than you, and I don't think it's fair to point others as a reason for us to jump on the train.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Counselor uh Evans and then Hart.

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh, quickly I'd like to speak to Councilor Devon's question or comment earlier.

I think this might end up some of what we were requesting.

When I joined the council, we were probably spending about eight million dollars in your own residential streets.

We've since grown out to 16 million, and then over a couple years where we used other uh revenue sources where we get 25 million.

Under this plan, residential streets will grow to 37 point 38 million dollars in 2027, then to 48 million, then to 63 and 65 million dollars thereof.

So it's essentially quite important, but current spending on residential streets, so I think that's a significant increase.

Um, I'm saying I'm one of those residents who who's done this record.

I bought a used car, a sitting in, not a Cadillac.

Um, I pay, I think right out of $14 for my sur tax.

I'd be raising my own fee in support of those to $85.

Um, paid it off early.

The reality is we don't, the current structure is a progressive structure.

You buy a newer, more expensive car, you pay more.

We don't have control of that.

That's not a factor that's in this proposal because the state house eliminated that from our ability.

In the real world, that's not how we would want it to function, but it's the tool that we were given by the state house.

I'm gonna probably speak a little bit more plainly than what I've heard over here because I think there's a reality that's been missed, and that's the history as to why we're here.

Every mayor, probably since Mayor Hudduck, maybe even Mayor Luber, has kicked this can down the road.

Probably on the onvent of Uniga, incorporating the city and county together has screwed up the entire situation in regards to road funding, and it's never been addressed.

This mayor is just to blame as much as the others.

And that's just the reality of what we're dealing with.

But that said, for those who talk about commuter taxes, loving, hating whatever you feel about Mayor Oxet, he did advocate for it for about two years, I believe.

The State House said no.

It was not a part of anything they would do.

You can't do ticket fees, you can't do freight fees, you can't, you cannot address the road formula.

That's all done at the state house.

Start talking to your state legislators, especially if you're on the south side, because those folks are in control of the state house, and it means a lot more coming from you.

The other reality is there is not a plan.

There is pie in the sky to get us for the first 50 million in one year.

And that includes stormwater, and I will never accept that as a plan.

I am a district that has been helped tremendously by the Swarmwater Group.

That addresses people's homes who have been flooded for the neglect of infrastructure investment from this city for decades.

That's not a plan.

That's not reality.

And that's unacceptable.

And then the other part of this is behind the scenes, everybody just seems to be getting around.

This is what the legislator wants us to do.

They don't want us to use current revenues, they want us to raise the wheel tax, the surtax.

That's exactly directly coming from leadership's mouths over there to us.

In part because they know that this does not fix the problem.

This does not address the gap.

They know they're going to have to get involved at some point.

So they have point-point told us you have a tool that we have given you.

You had better use it before you come back over there asking us for help.

And that's just the reality.

It's a hard one.

We have been over there advocating for a better road formula.

No.

Look at the last several sessions.

There have been legislators who have introduced bills to address the inequity in the road formula.

It won't even get a hearing.

I did a pothole this year, didn't crack a room, lost the tire, 250 dollars.

It'll take me three years to make up for that one tire.

Now I know many of you probably lost rims, and that will be.

That doesn't include the front-end suspension that I know I have to go get fixed.

That's 230.

So it'll probably take me like six years to make up for this increase on my part.

I'll take that, knowing that I can drive on a road a little safer, a little bit less bumpy, and not have to worry about busting a ring and a tire.

We have to face up to the realities.

And I appreciate my colleagues talking about, you know, fine-tuning that budget, making cuts.

I'm there with them.

And that's gonna have to be part of this equation as we move forward too.

But as much as we've said you cannot tax your tax increase yourself out of it, you also can't cut the budget to get here either.

That's not reality.

We have employees that work for city county government that are barely making it themselves.

And that's happening because we don't have the revenues to give them a better quality of life and payment.

So when you think about cutting that budget, there are people's lives who are going to be impacted on that side too.

You've got to balance it, and that's the hard decision.

That's where we make our bigger but smaller paychecks that we get as part-time council.

That's where the buck stops.

We have to stop talking about this as if cutting it and people's lives are going to be impacted that way.

Thank you, Leader and here.

And if you hear Councillor Hart.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I don't think we land.

Thank you, Madame Chair.

Okay.

So I got a couple of points to make in the final letter that was sent to me that I sent it over, but it was just because we were here, and I thought I'd resolve and sent over, but everybody will have it before we get to the full council.

I'll get into that here in a second.

But I just want to open up with a couple of thoughts that came from counselors that they were speaking in my thoughts on that.

And there was a comment section on what it is.

I think one of those things was the gas tax at the time.

I remember one of the previous meetings we were talking about that there is a commitment by in between somewhere from the governor that he will restore those gas taxes to local governments.

So they're not completely written up.

So I just want to make sure that's a statement for the meeting and I that anybody's listening.

That it's not like because those have been suspended, they're just completely gone and limited from the equation.

But what if that are true that I know they're true?

On my way here today, I stopped by a constituent's house, like I think with three of them on another subject, but I asked them about this topic when I was there.

Um I said, What do you think?

And you know, their thing was similar to something to her today, right?

Is that my property's actually going up?

My food's going up.

Uh, name it, right?

It's gone up.

I'll take it this.

Uh and then on top of that is the things that I think about moving forward.

Uh we think about CA1, right?

We know that referendums are gonna happen across the city, and there's some that are existing and some that are gonna be new, they're gonna happen across the state.

And I mentioned this in other meetings too, that um the new uh kind of council and IPS, I can't think of the name of the school corporation board, right?

They're gonna create a FPL instead of taxes.

Um that's another reality.

There's the co it tax in 2028 that will most likely be impacted by the next council.

I can't imagine this council to do it.

Um, that's gonna, and that's what people are telling me, and I'm sharing with them the reality of what is to come in the future.

And you know, I look at this and I look at some of the things that we've done in the past.

The mayor claims that he can fund this through the next year, right?

And it's not like we don't do this, you know, his plan this year that we can't still work on this plan or a different plan or a combined plan going into 28.

But I wanted to be stated for the record that we spent more time on a snow plan.

So, yeah, we spent more time on a snow plan than we have on this plan.

And and obviously, you know, speaking of Republicans' copies, right?

Because we hadn't seen it until a couple weeks ago.

What you were proposing.

Um, we called me and I was borrowed too on the side.

So it's only been a couple of weeks that we've had a bit of an ability to digest this one questions.

We're learning in this public, we can actually do this presentation until your first presentation in public.

I mean, we're being at the same time.

I remember this guy.

Same time.

Got it.

So when we talk about having other ways to provide ideas, and we look at what we've got the mayor's plan for next year, so let's roll with that.

If you want the ability to really truly work together if it was bipartisan state house, or a bipartisan at the local level, but that takes the ability to get input from us.

Right now, I just spent 12 hours on my weekend trying to dig into this and come up with ideas, and I've got some of it, I can't put them together for the weekend at the end of the year for you and expect them to be bulletproof.

It takes time.

I'm sure that took you more than a couple weeks to get done, and I see the opportunity, uh, just how to go here based on what we know in the mayor's plan.

Using that example, the snow uh snow plan, uh, we shouldn't try and push this through in one month.

The best proposals we see take time.

Now I say this kindly, Councilor Nielsen.

Um, I look back at last week as well.

There's two really important meetings last week.

There was a metropolitan uh development or say a hearing examin meeting, but then on Monday we had a council meeting uh for our Met Dev.

What's interesting about those two meetings is that in the one on Monday, there was 22 payments and no taxes on that day.

That committee has a past full year, but that committee voted to accept 22 separate projects to take a payment that goes not to this, not to gases in lieu of taxes, that could go elsewhere.

That's one.

And that happens all the time, right?

Up and out.

Everyone, everyone, not 22, but we see a lot of violence a lot this year.

But on Thursday, we heard a hearing for a project that projects $30 million in taxes over the next 10 years.

And you publicly opposed that project.

So there are projects, there are things coming to this city.

There are new growths coming to the city that we have the opportunity, we have to cut because there's new things.

There's other economic development.

I know he had a big project down in his district.

They're gonna see 80% of those worth of pay because of that project.

Or around that, there's a lot of opportunities.

So before we submit any plan, there's a couple questions I have.

I'm just identifying some areas that we've looked to make adjustments on.

One adjustment is: have we looked at the aggregate TIFFs that we have in Marion County and looked at the amount that we don't have allocated to any debt to use as dollars to go towards matching out of the one?

Yeah, uh, can I?

So uh, I'm not yet.

Yeah, the digital question.

I didn't finish off his questions.

Oh, look at that.

The second one is how much debt is rolling off before 2031 because that's going to open up dollars that we don't have to spend towards that debt, and then what that schedule looks like I think is an impact, very important as we look at these next five years.

And then what attempts have been made to adjust the COVID andor property tax orders?

Because we do have those as levers, right?

But really, it's the levy of those taxes that we have the most ability on, generally certified shares, but also on municipal corporations.

So when I consider um making cuts, it's not just us, but with India, we can make a pretty good debt into their cut by just adjusting the amount of property taxes that we're sending over there.

We can still save some money.

And that still leaves them with plenty of money from COVID.

That'll leave that will leave them with plenty of money from your special uh tax levy.

So those are at least three options that I've thought of, you know, and there's more, but I'll leave it at that for today.

Uh but I'm curious of what what exercises have we gone through before asking people to take money out of their pocket?

Um, that's a lot, and I'm gonna respond to a few things too.

Um first on the pilots and medic, that was the change to process.

So those 22 projects are how the Department of Metropolitan Development is choosing to submit projects to IOCGA.

So those are not 22 projects that the council is voting to approve, those are 22 projects that the council is considering as part of a broad application of which some of those projects would be.

So it's entirely possible that none of them are, but I hear your point.

As for the project that uh I testified against, that's a data center, Councillor Hart.

And uh my community has spoken pretty loudly that they don't want a data center.

So if your solution to the infrastructure problem is our data centers, that's absolutely fine.

Um I encourage you to go out there and say that because we can pack the same full of data centers to fund infrastructure.

I I'm curious if you would put your name on that.

Um, aggregate TIFFs are one-time potential funding sources, uh, as you know, but that isn't really actually I I appreciate that idea.

Had not thought of that.

Um, oftentimes other TIFFs are ready to pay other issues, so I think there's a sorting that through.

Similar to the TIFS, debt using debt is um a good tool, but it's a good tool, I think, part of a plan.

Per Counselor Delaney's questions, and I think emphasize that relying just on bonding authority to fund infrastructure creates clips, right?

It doesn't create certainty within the budget to program those things.

So I don't know how much is rolling off.

There's an amber amortization schedule in the budget book that would be able to tell you that.

As for co it and for property tax, raising income tax to fund this, I when we have a dedicated dedicated revenue source, is I think we have to explore the dedicated revenue source first to ensure, again, that those dollars are being used for the intended purpose, and so we have not done that because that's what we took, that's what we took the real tax and surface approach.

And then finally, on the property tax, we can actually measure the levies as much as we want, but those dollars go to the circuit record oftentimes, right?

So we are competing with other units of government in order to capture the actual revenue from the modified adjusted growth potion that comes from the state.

So we're allowed to grow by a certain amount of which we compete with other levels of governments, including schools, in order to get those dollars.

So it's just adjusting the rate alone if you're really just fighting with other local units of government of on tape losses.

That's what the circuit breaker losses are, right?

They're above the constitutional caps, and they can't actually be recognized by the government.

They're they sit on the balance sheet.

Um, so property tax, not really an option, income tax, not really the most responsible first step.

TIFF and debt are tools of part of a plan, um, but maybe go along with the plan to build as many data centers as we can in the county in order to pay for infrastructure.

Um so I think that hopefully that answers your question.

I have your last question there.

Uh, well, there was just an inaccurate statement response back to what I was saying.

I just want to clarify that.

Uh I didn't suggest that we increase how it's five.

But we have the ability to adjust the pillars of co it to where those dollars go.

We have the same ability to do that on property tax, and that's the suggestion.

So on the chair, in response.

So the dedicated rate for Indigo is securing bonds.

We can adjust that rate.

Part of the issue with SB1 right now is we don't have the assurance that we actually can implement that income tax rate to pay the bonds.

So that's one part.

Um, the homestead relief program was just going to circuit breaker, we eliminated that last year.

The stabilization fund is a permanent one-time $34 million component of the income tax that we carry over.

So really the only leverage we have to pull is on the public safety side and on the certified shares on the uncertified shares rate.

So in order to generate the revenue for infrastructure, we would have to raise the income tax via the certified share component in order to do that.

So that's why I assume maybe that you were advocating for increasing the income tax.

It's an advocation for dedicating a portion of the certified shares of the way towards the budget council.

And we have the ability to change that.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Uh thank you, gentlemen.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you, Councilman.

Um I think the evidence is obvious that our past performance and the past investment in this process is not working.

You drive on it every day, and it's uh not available, but the current model is not working.

Um we face an annual gap of over 600 million dollars in funding, even doing this, still just scratches the surface.

It's still not solving the problem.

If we don't scratch the service in this fashion, though, the problem's gonna get exponentially worse very quickly.

Um, rate of charts that hasn't been changed since 1992.

I agree, I blame several mayors' administrations for that.

I think they're being more fiscally responsible.

The fiscal future of Indianapolis is not a bright one.

We're facing fiscal cliffs left and right as we go forward.

Senate Bill 1.

There's 10 million dollars we're losing there this year.

20 million dollars next year, 30 million dollars in three years.

You take that, you take the gas tax, and we may or may not get back from the budget.

That's estimated it's already 10 million.

If it's extended any further, it's gonna be 13.5 billion, 17 million.

So we are looking at daggers in our financial heart if we don't do something drastic here.

The mayor, and back to, and we appreciate Representative Delay and Senator Taylor being here today, to emphasize that we are essentially have been told if you don't raise your own money, you're not gonna get any more state money.

Everything that's been mentioned thus far about why aren't we doing this, why aren't you doing that?

That's exactly what we have been trying to do for the last several years.

This state legislature has not allowed it.

This is what the sole thing they have allowed us to do.

And it was a bipartisan approach.

So it's not like the Democrats are out here screaming, let's raise taxes.

It was a bipartisan opportunity to allow Indianapolis to raise a lot of its own money and to tweak the formula to the uh lane miles versus linear miles, and that's gonna be a big plus.

Um we've also seen nothing from the mayor scheme.

I call it a scheme, it's not a plan.

You can't predict when he expects 25 million dollars out of the spring fiscal.

We don't even know what that amount is going to be.

We never in my six years have ever had an opportunity to take that much money in spring fiscal, so you understand what that is, that's income tax money that flows through the state to us.

It comes in March or April, it's usually anywhere from 20 to 40 million dollars, and it's unassigned, unobligated, free money.

We can do with it whatever we want.

It's not dedicated to anything.

It is 20, 30, 40 million dollars here in Indianapolis City County Council, do it as you wish.

However, every year, the administration has used a big chunk of that to so-called fix their balance budget, to supply and fill the gaps in things that were not funded in the so-called balanced budget, when they were dipping into the spring fiscal.

So to think that the mayor now wants to take 25 million out of spring fiscal, which is not even problems that much will be there, it's just wishful thinking.

That's not a plan.

That's a scheme that he hopes you buy.

If they were so confident about this, where have they been, the flat two words?

Why aren't they here?

Why aren't they out holding their own press conferences, pushing their plan?

There's a good reason.

Because it doesn't hold wire.

This plan does.

This is a solid five-year plan that will reach the goals and the target goals each year that will result in 50 million dollars in additional state money every year for five years.

It will raise over uh the final number of 856 million dollars.

That's a close to the billion dollar deficit that has been stated by professional studies showing how far underfunded our road structure plan has been all these years, and we're getting 86 percent there in five years.

I think that's quite a cheap.

Um, no one likes to pay taxes.

Um, and I just think there's to remain competitive in this country to remain uh competitive to attract talent.

There's a big brain drain going on in Indiana in Indianapolis as well, and if we don't turn things around, it's gonna get worse.

So we need additional money, be it income tax, be ahead, be a voters in our county.

Otherwise, this problem we're gonna be here five years from now talking about the same issues.

And I know it's painful, but pretending to think we have a model that's not sustainable, that's basically wishful thinking, is not going to get us there.

And I know it's we've taken the time, and particularly CFO, Paris and Councillor Nielsen, it's been a painful long process to one identify the problem, and number two, devise and feed it by which we can achieve the goal of reaching those money in a solid way, not a wishful scheme.

This is money that we know will be there.

And once we trigger that, some of it's a timing.

We have to tell and get this passed by September 1.

If we don't do it by September 1, the opportunity next year is made.

So that's part of the problem of timing.

Again, that wasn't our choice.

That was the law handed to us by our Indiana General Assembly.

So it's not like the Democrats in this council are taking it up to ourselves to raise your taxes.

We are identify the problem and come up with a solution to address a systemic issue that has haunted us, and it is by far.

I just did a survey in my district last month.

By far and away, number one issue, infrastructure.

Over everything else, over police and fire, infrastructure.

So it is something we take deadly serious, and the best way to get there is through this five-year plan.

So I suggest and I strongly encourage everybody here to support proposition 192.

And hopefully over time, I think, in our full council on July 6th, I hope the council sees fit to pass it as well.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you, Councilor Moops.

I do believe there's one individual that didn't get the opportunity to speak, Pastor, if you would like to come forward, state your name.

One of the things that I want to bring to the fact of this conversation is the fact that if you're wanting to increase taxes, first of all, resolve the issues that your constituents are going to do.

And that is something you've already stated about, your tires and all of those issues.

Why don't you make it a bit more palatable by addressing their issue?

The issue is the fact that they're suffering because of the roads.

So I think that would be out of things about trying to sell something to someone.

At least if I can't offer you a dessert, I would try to give you a big meal.

And I think too, how do we move forward without being divisive?

Because we all can make politics a issue instead of us coming together with the right ideas that will serve all of us well.

The roads are not Republican roads, they're not democratic roads.

They're our roads.

For those who represent us in the state house, we need to also understand that this is the pearl of Indianapolis or Indiana.

Indianapolis.

It's the pearl.

So simply meaning that we all want to make this city the best.

Those of you who are council persons, you're representing your constituents.

And the best thing for us to do is put our minds together and come up with the right solution that is going to be uh for all of us.

Because tonight, as I listen, you know, hearing attitudes and tones that makes it divisive, and persons don't want to get with you no matter what.

But I think sometimes we just have to put all that aside and say what's best for our people.

And what's best for our people is, you know, dealing with the issues before us put aside your politics what you Republican Democrat once again we're doing it for the people that that's what you're truly about those clothes should show it when you cut yourself the blood steel surface is great so that's what I want to say thank you Pastor Councillor Nielsen see if it appears thank you for that president I appreciate the discussion uh this evening I'm sure it's not going to end tonight uh thank you very much for the opportunity to answer questions first and do you mind sharing when's the next public hearing you had announced early at the beginning of the next listening session will be um next Wednesday uh the uh 24th at the uh Warren Township Schools administration building at 6 p.m and that's 975 North Post Road thank you with that I'll entertain a motion so move the motion has and here you look like so the motion has been what you hear do we request that okay thank you the motion has been properly moved and seconded all those in favor I don't think we probably should be rolling also let the motion and see us uh so it's been properly moved and seconded thank you madam chair are you gonna do the handy moving I can do it if you like counselor may counselor maybe no counselor boots boots yes counselor brown yes counselor jelly counselor evidence yes counselor jones jones yes counselor neilson yes counselor robinson robins and aye chair lewis lewis aye thank you madam chair proposal passes thank you the motion carries you know that uh this for this committee I understand a motion for adjournment to our