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.