Much of our day to day interaction with government is local in nature.

Locally controlled entities collect our trash, plow our streets, fill our potholes, maintain our parks, field our 911 call staff our libraries, issue our building permits, and inspect our pools, restaurants, and gas pumps.

Increasingly, though, Hoosier counties, municipalities and townships are finding their authority and their funding limited by the Indiana General Assembly.

Hi, I'm Jon Schwantes, and on this week's show, we'll check on the 21st century viability of Thomas Jeberson's oft quoted contention that the government closest to the people serves the people best.

It's Indiana lawmakers from the state House to your house.

Indiana Lawmakers is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations, with additional support provided by ParrRichey.

Local governments in Indiana are heavily influenced by state oversight, often leading to tension between the two levels of government.

Last year's Senate Enrolled Act one reconfigured finances two towns, school districts and townships by significantly limiting property tax collection.

This effectively minimized the funding through which governments at the local level could fund services and infrastructure.

The measure, championed by Governor Braun, provided substantial property tax relief, most notably to homeowners.

Estimates suggest the new law will result in a loss of $1.8 billion in funding for local governments.

This year, Indiana lawmakers are tasked with updating the state's tax codes to be in compliance with the congressional tax overhaul, dubbed by President Trump as the one Big beautiful bill.

While some of the federal tax changes will be adopted, state leaders noted that the cost of the tax breaks would be in all likelihood, too expensive for the state to incur.

The broad federal tax cuts included temporary deductions on car loan interest, deductions on workers receiving tips and overtime wages and deductions for eligible seniors.

Two bills proposed this legislative session seek to limit township government with the aim of increasing efficiency and eliminating duplication of effort.

House Bill 1315 would require townships to dissolve and merge with neighboring cities or counties, if they have fewer than 6700 residents.

Lack of fire department.

And if their salary expenses are more than twice the cost of the public assistance they distribute.

Alternatively, Senate Bill 270 would mandate township consolidation on the basis of performance metrics to absorb lower performing townships with more active ones.

Township government has long been criticized for its role and purpose.

This is particularly true, and the urban and suburban communities in which the townships may overlap with a city that offers many of the same services.

Township officials in the state, however, argue that they provide low income residents with emergency rental, mortgage or utility assistance.

More efficiently than other types of government.

In addition, they maintain old cemeteries and provide other amenities that are available to all residents, such as parks and fire departments.

Here to talk about the fundamental but often fraught relationship between state and local units of government are Republican Senator Rick Niemeyer of Lowell, ranking member of the Senate Local Government Committee, Democratic Representative Ed Delaney of Indianapolis, assistant chair of his caucus, and former state Representative Jeb Bardon, who has spent the past three and a half years as Wayne Township trustee here in Marion County.

And I have to distinguish that because there are 16 other or 15 other Wayne townships, I looked it up, so I can't have any confusion.

Senator, let me start with you.

You took an interesting path here.

You were, in local government, on the drainage board, on the solid waste board.

You were on the county council.

You were a trustee.

You were an assessor at the township level before you were in the house.

And then subsequently the Senate.

You've seen the change over time.

What is the relationship now between, say, townships or local government generally and the state legislature compared to what you saw when you were on the other side of the equation?

Sure.

Well, we know and, Mitch Daniels was governor, the current chairman report came out, basically was saying that, you know, township government had to be looked at pretty strongly and maybe even abolish it.

So that was kind of and that was township trustee assessor at that time.

So I was with the association and even with the association going down, we always talked and I always spoke up that we got 1001 townships in this state, that you're probably not going to survive in 2001 townships.

You're going to have to look at merging or doing something different with township government, because I believe in township government, the oldest form of government we have in this, state and it's closest to the people.

So I believe very much in that and that type of government.

So I've worked when I've been down here trying to put something together.

And, these gentlemen know this stuff.

Over the years there was population figure came out one year.

Just eliminate it with this population and and just trying to downsize the township system.

But this year, this summer we come up with a plan.

Did it at township Association and brought in trying to set a parameter of, of not looking at the population as strongly, but that's there.

But look at what you're doing.

Are you doing your job?

Are you needed or do you need to merge another township next year to provide better service?

And that's kind of how the bill got started.

And you mentioned the Kernan Shepherd report.

That was 2007.

If memory serves.

And I was, reminded the other day that their report was a mirror of a proposal made by Paul McNutt, a knight, the governor of Indiana in 1936.

So they've been there have been, folks out to get the, township system, for.

Yeah, yeah, for a long time now.

Geoff Barton, you went the opposite path here.

You, of course, were in, 14 years in the legislature before you became a township trustee.

Let me ask you the flip side.

I mean, now that you're on the different other side, do you see things differently, or have you seen dramatic change in that relationship?

It local government is is an eye opener.

I mean, to be in the midst of day to day operations of a fire department, a small claims court, direct assistance.

It's it has been an eye opener, been for 14 years in the legislature has its perspective.

But getting into into the business of actually operating government as it's and you sense that you're sort of the rope a dope is the old boxing term that you are.

Are you there?

It seems as if a lot of blows are being struck toward local government or at local government.

I don't know if they're all connecting.

Yeah, but, do you feel that way every day?

I mean, it's I didn't come in under normal circumstances in terms of our, our township, came into a unique mess.

And so it has been great to have your resignation.

You were appointed and then subsequently.

So we've really, we've worked aggressively to try and re-invent township government for Wayne Township.

I think the taxing has been a big factor.

This is where we get along.

By the way, this is my great, good friend.

But even though I want to get rid of the trustees across the board.

But what we've done on the tax side is hurt.

And especially when you have, both a fire department and, in that case, a small claims court, but then also the need to give aid to the poorest, it's not working very well.

And I hope that the shrinking, the number of communities that have townships will help.

We'll get some heft in some of those places that right now are just too small to function.

But I think that we're hurting them in a lot of ways that are not a direct attack, but they're indirect attack on their wallet.

And some of those townships are sitting on reserves.

Are they not?

They could potentially be tapped to to help cover some of the gap.

I know you brought that up in the past session.

That's a problem.

Well, let's take these.

You've mentioned now sort of the fallout from last year's SB one and the property tax reform.

I don't want to leave the township reform idea because you quite yet because you again came up last summer.

You looked at it, came up with a proposal that was a point system.

Then you got points for being efficient with your fire services, with your delivery of, of financial assistance to those in need.

ET cetera, etc.. Did you have elections where they contested elections, etc., etc.?

The House, took a different approach.

It was a similar goal, which was reducing the number more than a thousand, as you pointed out, townships right now.

But basically looking at who's next to a city, who's next to a large population area and that sort of approach, you found a way in this era of non compromise, just this week to come up with how those two would fit together.

So it's part a point system and then part geography is that the point system never leaves even the ones that the amendment is in there now that went to the House that they put in with, is, 80% inside a corporation and 50% to 51% of the populations in that city or town.

Then but they still the township has the score for that means that some of the stuff they're not doing, if they score three, they stay as a township.

Okay.

So you get the bigger townships, some of them are going to be next on fire protection, maybe a little bit or some some other issue out there, but they're doing their job on the rest of it.

And especially when it comes to assistance and stuff, they got a that they're never going to get hit on.

Those points that took a made my knowledge townships my score one or 2 or 3 points.

But they're still going to survive be part of that government because they didn't score for it was set up to the department, low government finance and the state Board of Accounts that these things are things that can be checked.

There are things that are there for everyone to look at.

If a township doesn't quite agree with something that comes out, they can appeal it directly to those one of those agencies.

But if it set up, if you score four, then you're going to have to look at merging.

I mean, you got problems, you got a problem.

You're not you're not you're not sufficient as you should be.

Kind of took the population figure out at this point.

You know, maybe that can creep back in some other time.

But right now it just whether you're doing your job or not.

And in some cases these small townships, it's not their fault.

I mean, there is sort of enough people, there's not enough revenue there.

And it just it makes sense to merge with someone else.

I and the amendment, the House did, we put in it.

We pushed it out another year to 29.

What I hope happens is these townships look at each other.

They're going to know they're scoring a 4 or 5.

They get together locally to decide where they want to go, what's the best merger for them, and public hearing to get this done before the bill takes effect.

Because that and as Ed knows, and this gentleman knows too, that that that statutes always been there.

They could always merge.

Yes.

Oh, so you're encouraging the sort of the matchmaking to it on its own.

I would moving that deadline because then you're going to get to dialog and even, even if it goes all the way to the last point, there's still dialog between the county commissioner and the trustees Award, I think would be the best merge.

Now, the House plan, the estimate was it might eliminate as many as 600, close to 700 townships.

Of the more than 1000 originally, your bill would have been maybe around, what, 300?

So where where does this end up or do we know, how many dissipating anywhere from 3 to 340.

And that area will be eliminated out of 2008 or.

Yeah, given give or take.

Yeah.

And it's kind of idea, by the way.

Yeah.

I'm just sitting here thinking about the school districts.

We got 270 of them.

Yeah.

I'm even thinking about some of our small city.

I'm even thinking about our counties.

Take your proposition.

We do not need 92 counties.

Actually.

Are we going to set up a scoring also?

That's an asset.

The counties are the only thing that's in the Indiana Constitution.

I understand cities and towns are all legislative.

Right I understand.

So you want another constitutional amendment?

It's A1A session.

And I'm just thinking about this.

You're saying if you're not efficient, you're not producing the job, you're not adequate to the task.

We're get ready.

Well, the citizens may be tempted by this idea.

I'm fascinated.

Well, maybe we should go dust off the current Sheppard report.

I believe schools were dealt with.

I don't think it was limited solely to township.

I think it's a similar problem.

Same problem?

You pointed out that it's hard for somebody who's eligible to merge, who can even see the advantages to say, I'm giving up my office, I'm making a deal with the trustee.

The township next to me that's hard is same way with the school district.

You kind of cut through it and say that if you flunk certain tests, then you're going to get the chance to merge.

You're going to merge.

You're saying that model could have last mile is dangerous as unique.

And I wouldn't do it in a good way.

You're thinking here way, if one of my many desires is the homeowner's association, I would do that.

I'd merge all of them into one.

They're taking over the legislature.

We're spending more time, right, passing bills on the bloody homeowners association.

I don't don't pick a fight with homeowners.

Oh, I know, well, Jeb, I know this doesn't affect you necessarily for any number of not in the immediate in the immediate future, for any number of reasons.

But your organization, your colleagues across the state eventually said, okay, yeah, we can live with this.

Is that just a matter of this is sort of the lesser of the potential evils?

I can't imagine that there are township trustees that want to wave goodbye to their to the offices they've held, in some cases for years.

I think it's a reflection of their their trustees who want to provide services in the best way possible.

And I think that the bill as it stands today creates a system for moving through that process and not taking away services.

You, you know, you could face just blowing them out of the water and, and risk losing that safety net.

Or you could do it the right way and keep the safety net in place.

So does anyone have any concern that things might fall through the cracks?

A lot of the smaller township trustee offices, they'll do cemetery upkeep, the sort of those out of the way cemeteries that nobody from pioneer days, they'll, you mention fire, but also, for for those who are in need for assistance, for utility payments and those sorts of things.

Any fears?

Delaney, that that's that that can't be accomplished by the county.

That's one of the risk.

But that's what we have county government for, is eventually to say, look, if we're not taking care of the cemeteries, the county man, so we don't it'll get done.

Yeah, I think it'll get done.

I think one of the most interesting things and I don't know, Senator, you agree.

I think a lot of the tension about township governance is driven by the problem about fire service.

We want better fire service.

We're paying 1 to $2 million for a fire truck.

Okay.

We need more professional firefighters because we're losing a lot of volunteer firefighters.

So I think part of the pressure has really nothing to do with the social service component or even the competency of trustees.

It's just it's getting to be a big money issue in some places, and we have way too many fire service units.

I can't even count the types we have fire territories, fire service districts, township, city.

Am I right that the pressure is partly because of the fire issues?

I think you're absolutely right.

And this would make them bigger.

Eight departments, they're what's going to happen.

You're going to have, you know, putting budgets together and putting this together and and you're going to have more, coordination because you get townships.

Now they're they're all by their own fire protection.

You know, there was volunteer fire departments, stuff that they need to coordinate when they're buying their equipment.

You know, like you don't need a big hook and ladder truck in some of these areas.

Maybe you need 1 in 1 in the area, one in the county.

All right.

Those big fire issues you have.

But I think it'll be more coordination.

The biggest part I think is the medical stuff too.

They had to throw money at the medical because that's what more people are going to use on a daily basis than the fire protection, of course.

And, but the fire fire department are so much different.

They were that when I was in the trusteeship, they have to have training now.

They have to get certified.

The insurance will not cover you if you don't have that certification.

The insurance, you got to have a clean driver's license.

You got to have all that stuff put together.

So it's a big commitment for for volunteers.

And that's why we're looking more professional type firefighter, because it's hard to get volunteers that are doing other jobs and put all that time in the family.

Well, enabling service has risen is a big issue.

I didn't detect that 20 and 15 years ago in the legislature, but now we got on.

We have to get ambulance service to all parts, all parts of the state, and we're having trouble a majority of counties, right, that don't have, hospitals.

Right.

One we're struggling with that.

Yeah.

Well, you, you know, when you talk about training firefighters or medics or you talk about buying fire equipment, this is all money.

And it gets back to something Delaney was talking about a moment ago, where townships and cities and counties continue to fail, squeezed Senate Bill one last year was the much ballyhooed property tax reform, which essentially because remember, when you're looking at property taxes, that's the state's just a pass through agent.

The money's all going to the locals anyway, of course.

And a billion plus that was going to go there in the past won't go there now in the biennium.

And now this year, as the state moved to align itself with the big beautiful bill and some of the tax reductions there, we're looking at another 50 million plus.

That's not going to go to locals.

Any concern there that local should have with this continuing tightening of the spigot?

I think with the township and the volunteer fire departments and the and the counties that have a vast amount of unincorporated area and in their, in their county, maybe 80 or 90% of it is unincorporated area.

The counties are going to have to come in now and help more with that when they're going to let tax to public safety, because townships aren't in that formula.

And schools aren't in that form that either.

We can do something with that option.

Delaney knows that.

So I think it's a real challenging right now.

But the county is going to have to get more involved in fire protection as far as getting money available for these local fire departments, fire districts and volunteer firemen.

So it's going to be a different system.

It is.

It's a tough moment because we affected their income tax at the same time that we affected the property tax revenue.

And and we have, you know, three basic types of local government.

We have those that are static, those that are growing and those that are really growing.

And the ones that are really growing are stressed because the tax system doesn't allow them to build those fire stations they need, doesn't allow them to staff them.

I mean, I hear about mayors who can build a station, but they can't get the staff because they don't have the money.

We've got to figure out how these different patterns can be all succeed.

I mean, is there a formula right now?

The General Assembly last year said, okay, yes, we're taking away money that has been flowing into your coffers, but we're going to give you increased capacity to tax.

In some cases it's very complicated, but but not at the township level, not at the township level.

Right.

But and so you're, you're in a different, situation.

And even if you look at the those who do have the authority, the municipalities and the counties, do they really want to, I mean, basically taxpayers end up paying the same amount.

It's just that now the check is going to a different governmental entity.

Are you feeling that?

Absolutely.

Push comes to shove, I think taxpayers don't want to lose services.

And our biggest concern right now, with the change in the income tax formula is we go from a state, formula for distribution of the county option income tax to a county generated formula for the distribution of lit local income tax.

Potentially as a township, we could lose 15% of our budget.

And that's a that's a frightening number.

Does this get worse before it gets better, or is this a I mean, next I presume next budget session long session will have to address this in way accuracy.

That's how we learn.

We stumble and we clean it up.

That's what we're doing here.

And that's a good.

So something's going to have to change.

Yeah.

It can't you can't remain the.

And you agree Senator.

That can't remain the way the pressures are.

There is not.

We got to face a whole different ballgame now with with the with toilet tax and what, what I think I like about of course we are from local government that it's money that stays home.

People can see transparency and where it's going, no matter what formula you come up with on this little tax.

But they're going to want services.

They're going to let.

And public safety comes in.

And Amazon is a big part of the township stuff.

And and the general assistance I don't know how much you have general assistance, but quite a bit I would think while you're at it, that's a big thing.

That's your direct help to the people to come in that I always said Township was a direct help for, over a difficult period.

It's not that's supposed to be consistent, but somebody gets in trouble to get out of work.

They need utility bills paid or some food.

You can jump in and help them in a 30 day basis.

Yeah.

That's what's so good about that system.

It's a lifeboat.

So everybody agrees something's going to have to change next session.

But the critical issue is counties and cities are going to be focused on police, fire, ambulance.

And that's a priority for counties.

You can lose in that fight.

The focus on taking care of folks in that critical moment who are facing eviction, who are facing loss of utilities.

We're hungry.

Of course, there also are things like libraries, schools, again, not necessarily controlled by county libraries or local schools.

This issue of first time I've seen that it's under pressure that some think they're overfunded, God forbid, you know, but that's what we're here.

Direct control of that.

Yeah.

So yeah, county government is going to become much more powerful than it was.

You led me to my final sort of topic here, I did not vote for that bill.

No libraries.

Okay, here's the binding review.

I think that yeah.

Mean that's.

Well, but you see, this is the dilemma.

Is the county going to come stronger?

I think the answer is yes.

Over time they're becoming stronger.

Well that's.

And again who where who has the clout.

Here is an interesting issue because it's not just the purse strings which are increasingly are being squeezed preemption.

I mean, which is a fancy way, I guess, of saying, that we are telling you, we if you're the General Assembly, I want to speak for you, telling locals you can't do this, even though we were a home rule state, ostensibly, you can't do this.

And so far we can't.

You can't regulate plastic bags at grocery stores.

You can't, ban puppy sales.

At, at pet stores.

You can't govern landlord tenant relationship.

It's getting more serious.

You can't pass a bill yesterday that's going to deal with, you know, zoning and local zoning for all the big H, HB 1001, which does have an opt out provisions, but that's we could spend ten just about which it was this a is this a concern.

Is is there some kind of power grab here that's going to cost not just townships, but Middle Township in this session?

I've been down there since 2012 and 14 from the Senate.

It it seemed like there's, there's, a lot of pressure on local control of, of trying to take that some way back to the state level on some of these issues, which I don't agree with.

I don't vote for those bills.

The locals and what these locals didn't make it right decision.

What if they didn't make a right decision?

Innocent.

Is the votes coming up okay.

And you can control it just like a school board.

Kind of same way you have local control of that.

And what states are mandating, especially on the rental type stuff we looked at in that.

1001 I didn't agree with that.

Locals have the ability to do what they need to do, and if they don't, then somebody else would try to run and make that change.

So I don't know why we're it seems like we've got a pressure on local control this year, and I'm all, I'm all for about home rule.

I think most of us are sitting here.

So how far do we go with that?

I don't know.

Well, yeah, I think the argument I hear it's never stated is that while you may be happy with what's going on in your county, your township, we here at the state House are not happy with your county.

Okay.

And so we're going to change the rules for you.

We're seeing that they're fooling around my school district.

They're fooling around my police department now they're fooling around my courts.

This is in Indianapolis.

This is the way court or judges are approved.

Now.

Now it's there's local bar association.

This could be more.

This is fascinating.

I say, you know, we may be fat, dumb and happy, but could you leave us alone because we are fat, dumb and happy?

Stop.

Is this just in on.

Is this going to happen from here on out?

This kind of preemption, this kind of control battle for control?

Or have we reached do we reach a plateau at some point?

We can always look over the fence and say, our neighbor's yard should be better.

That's what we're doing.

And so we're going to control their yard.

That's what the state House is doing.

And I'm really worried about that.

That's a trend that is think is destructive.

Even though I'm a great one for consolidation and uniformity.

I have to say, if people are basically satisfied with their local government, what are we doing to trash it?

So I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth, admittedly, but you're not eager to see the governor and state police control law enforcement in the I know square.

Yes, I do not need the governor who lives up the street from me.

I do not need him running my police department.

Sorry, Mike Gilmartin.

Martin, we're almost out of time.

I'll give you the final word again.

Now, has all this talk made you regret leaving the General Assembly?

Clearly, that's where the power is.

I mean, is it too late to go back?

You know, my concern in the big picture of all of this is, people throw snowballs at the state house and they wind up creating avalanches.

We are kind of in that right now.

And I think you indicated the impact on our school district.

I mean, I think we're all very concerned about what's coming.

And how do you stop that momentum?

Well, this story definitely will have future chapters, and I'm sure we'll be talking about it again, not necessarily this session, but certainly next year with the budget.

Thank you all for being here to chat with us again.

My guests have been Republican Senator Rick Niemeyer of Lowell, Democratic Representative Ed Delaney of Indianapolis and Wayne Township Trustee Jeb Barton.

And time now for our weekly conversation with analyst Ed Feigenbaum, publisher of the newsletter Indiana Legislative Insight, part of a news service.

And any surprises in the roundtable?

It was interesting that we heard some public acknowledgments that we are to just pass laws and then come back next session and correct them.

And we saw that last year with SB one, the property tax bill as well, where they acknowledged that there were going to be some things in that that legislation that they didn't quite know what the consequences would, would flow from and that they'd come back in in 2026 and they'd correct them.

We saw them correct some of those, but again, we still don't know what all the impacts are going to be because some of that stuff isn't going to really hit until next year.

And then we heard the acknowledgment that local governments are going to suffer from some of the things.

And in terms of the legislation we were just talking about with the township reforms this year and, well, let's see if we can come back next year to be a broad acknowledgment that something will have to be done to help some of the local governmental units, financially and otherwise.

Final hours of the session this week.

What stood out?

I think it was interesting that on some of the final third readings, and then the concurrence is that things weren't quite as cut and dried as we might have seen in the past, and there was a need to keep the voting boards open a little bit longer and some things in order to get that 26th vote.

Not not Partizan divides here.

I mean, it was all over the board and even in the house, we almost saw some of some of the opposite too, because the speaker would very quickly close the voting board.

When we got to 52 votes there.

But, and one third reading vote in the Senate early in the week, we saw a gaming bill passed with just 26 votes and that 26 vote, the last vote on the board was from a senator who, in committee the week before said, well, I've never voted for a gaming bill before, and I'm only voting for this one just to send it to the floor where we can work on it.

And he was willing to put it over the top.

Always interesting and always surprising.

Ed, as always, appreciate your input.

Thank you Jon.

Not On the next Indiana Lawmakers, the General Assembly's caucus leaders will be back to assess what was and wasn't accomplished in the 2026 legislative session.

Well, that's it for this week.

I'm Jon Schwantes, and on behalf of everyone involved in our program, Wfyi Public Media and Indiana's other public broadcasting stations, I thank you for joining us.

And I invite you to visit Fiord.

Org for more statehouse news.

Until next week, take care.

Indiana Lawmakers is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations, with additional support provided by ParrRichey.