Here’s a universally understood fact: Indiana Republicans for years dangled more money for streetwork over Indianapolis residents’ heads — with strings attached. Republicans were not subtle, or sly or secretive about their intentions. The state was only going to help Indianapolis if the city raised taxes on itself.
That’s the deal. It always was the deal.
Listen to Rep. Jim Pressel, R-Rolling Prairie, who talked to IndyStar in January 2025 as he was working on legislation that would give Indianapolis money tied to a tax increase.
“I’m trying to help them help themselves,” Pressel said at the time. “This is coming up with some tools that they could use.”
The “tools” arrived in the form of House Enrolled Act 1461, a law that increased the amount Indianapolis can charge for vehicle registration fees through the county wheel tax and vehicle excise tax.
Statehouse Republicans didn’t just enable a tax hike on Indianapolis. They encouraged it, tying $50 million per year in extra state money for streets starting in 2027 if the city accepted the state’s new “tools.”
A $50 million-per-year cash infusion would be a meaningful investment for a city that’s more than $1 billion behind in maintenance. But, in order to capture it and keep capturing it, Indianapolis faces math that goes from hard to nearly impossible, thanks to Senate Bill 179, which passed earlier this year.
The city must provide a local match of $50 million in 2027, $70 million in 2028, $80 million in 2029, $90 million in 2030 and $100 million in 2031 and beyond. Match is a misleading term because the city must actually keep ratcheting up its spending just to keep receiving the state’s baseline $50 million-per-year contribution.
In practice, Indianapolis can’t hit those numbers without generating new revenue. That’s the whole point of the laws. The state handed Indianapolis tax tools, told the city to use them and made the state’s help contingent on whether local leaders did it.
Now, Statehouse Republicans are silent while council Republicans weasel out of the deal their party engineered. And with Mayor Joe Hogsett threatening to veto any tax increase, council Republicans hold the votes that could decide whether Indianapolis captures the state’s road money — or walks away from it.
Republicans made this deal. They should own it.
If Republican lawmakers still want to help Indianapolis fix its cratered streets, and if they still want to hike taxes on city residents as a condition of generosity, then they should start selling their funding plan to the public.
More importantly, Pressel and House Speaker Todd Huston should ask City-County Council Republicans why they didn’t vote for the tax increases they initiated.
Council Republicans on July 6 unanimously rejected raising Marion County’s vehicle registration fees. The measure passed anyway, by a 14-10 vote, but the council would need 17 votes to override a veto by Hogsett.
It’s not clear that can happen without Republicans. The mayor’s selfish refusal to spend political capital on the one thing everyone knows needs to be done is leaving council Democrats alone to shoulder the leadership and political costs of fixing the damn streets.
To be clear, the tax increases passed by the council have objectionable costs.
Marion County drivers would pay a $100 local registration fee for passenger cars, up from an average of $20. Owners of larger vehicles, including heavy trucks, buses and semitrailers, would pay $240, up from $10 to $40.
The passenger car fee, in particular, would hit hard for low-income residents renewing their registrations for the first time under the higher tax. If the Republicans who came up with this idea can’t look Indianapolis residents in the eyes and take responsibility for the higher fees, then maybe Indianapolis really should just say no to the money and accept our third-world streets.
Cutting the budget isn’t a real answer
Council Republicans say Indianapolis can meet the state’s local match requirement by cutting spending and moving money over from other categories. My read on the city budget is that it might be possible for one year, but that’s about it. In any event, no one has put a specific proposal on the table showing their full math.
I’d also be more sympathetic to Republicans’ calls for budget cuts if they hadn’t repeatedly voted for Hogsett’s budgets over two and a half terms and if they weren’t invoking ideas such as cutting funding to IndyGo, which is a separate entity funded by a taxpayer-backed referendum and federal grants that can’t just be raided to suit the politics of the moment.
It’s true there could be other, fairer ways to pay for streetwork than overtaxing citizens.
The state could pass a commuter tax so Indianapolis can recoup money from people who drive on city streets without paying for them. The state also could alter the Community Crossings grant program, in which Marion County receives 11 cents for every dollar its taxpayers generate, per analysis by Policy Analytics. The rest of Indiana is paving its roads with Indianapolis’ money while ours fall apart.
But no. Pressel told IndyStar back in 2025 those options are off the table.
“We’re not going to recreate the whole funding formula,” he said at the time. “I’m trying to provide (Indianapolis) some options that they can do on their own.”
The option is here. Indianapolis can either raise vehicle registration fees on citizens or accept that the Statehouse will never send another dollar to help fix our streets.
Council Republicans should provide the votes to override Hogsett’s likely veto, if and when it comes. If they won’t, they should at least call Pressel and Huston and ask what the Statehouse intended for Indianapolis to do with HEA 1461, if not raise taxes.
Contact James Briggs at 317-444-4732 or james.briggs@indystar.com. Follow him on X at @JamesEBriggs.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Republicans wanted Indy to raise taxes. Now, they’re weaseling out. | Opinion
Reporting by James Briggs, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
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By James Briggs, Indianapolis Star | USA TODAY Network
