I don’t believe in raising taxes when you don’t have to. That’s not a talking point. It’s a conviction I’ve held throughout my time on the Bartholomew County Council, and it’s one that was put to the test in a very real way this past year.
In 2025, the Indiana General Assembly passed House Enrolled Act 1461 (HEA 1461), a sweeping road-funding overhaul that changed how state transportation dollars are distributed, and quietly buried inside it was a provision that amounted to a state mandate in disguise: adopt a local wheel tax and vehicle excise surtax, or lose access to key road funding your residents already paid into.
Bartholomew County said no. And then we paid for it.
Here’s the full story: what the law does, what it costs us, and where things stand now.
What HEA 1461 Does
Indiana has a legitimate road-funding problem. Gas tax revenue — the primary source of funding for road maintenance — has been declining for years as vehicles become more fuel-efficient and electric vehicles grow in number. HEA 1461 was the legislature’s attempt to address that shortfall by restructuring the flow of transportation funds from the state to local governments.
Some of the changes made sense. Others were deeply troubling to local officials across Indiana and none more so than this one:
To access the new Lane Mile Distribution funding program, a direct, formula-based distribution to counties and cities based on how many lane miles they maintain, a local government must first adopt a wheel tax and vehicle excise surtax.
The wheel tax is an annual registration surcharge applied to vehicles like buses, RVs, semi-trailers, and heavy trucks. The excise surtax applies to passenger vehicles. Under current law, the wheel tax ranges from $5 to $40 per vehicle. Fifty-six of Indiana’s 92 counties already had one in place. Bartholomew County did not — and for good reason.
Why We Never Had a Wheel Tax
In 2017, a wheel tax was briefly considered by the county council during a financial crunch. The council chose a different path: a local option income tax that went into effect in 2018. That decision was deliberate. Unlike a wheel tax, which can only be spent on roads and streets, income tax revenue gives the county government the flexibility to direct dollars where they are needed most: roads, but also public safety, services, and other community priorities.
We have managed our money well. We haven’t overtaxed our residents. We have found ways to maintain our infrastructure without layering on new fees that many counties accepted reflexively.
When HEA 1461 came along, it didn’t ask whether we had found other ways to fund our roads. It simply said: no wheel tax, no new money.
I said it then, and I’ll say it now: “We don’t need the wheel tax, but we’d be forced to enact it to get our state road funds? That is irresponsible. Why are you taxing people if you don’t need to?”
Commissioner Tony London put it just as plainly: “We don’t need a wheel tax. We don’t need an additional tax to take care of our roads if everybody plays by the same rules. The idea of forcing us to institute a tax to get some of the other taxes we should be rightfully entitled to is absolutely mind-boggling.”
State Rep. Ryan Lauer, who represents our community in Indianapolis, agreed and voted against the provision: “I don’t think it’s appropriate to tie state funding to a local tax.”
Despite all of that opposition, the bill passed and was signed into law.
What It Costs Bartholomew County
The consequences were immediate and concrete.
Before HEA 1461, the Community Crossings Matching Grant (CCMG) program had been a critical funding source for local roads across Indiana, averaging $260 million in statewide distributions annually since launching in 2016. Bartholomew County received $10.4 million through that program over the years, and for the past two years, collected the maximum award of $1.5 million, which we matched with local dollars to put roughly $3 million annually toward road improvements.
HEA 1461 gutted the program. The total funding pool dropped from $260 million to just $100 million per year. Half of that must go to counties and towns with populations under 50,000, which excludes Bartholomew County entirely. The maximum award was reduced from $1.5 million back to $1 million. In effect, we went from competing for a piece of $260 million to competing for a piece of $50 million.
Then came the worst news: in November 2025, the county received a letter from INDOT stating that we were being awarded zero dollars from the Community Crossings program for 2026. No explanation. No returned phone calls. Commissioner London made 12 attempts to reach INDOT and received zero callbacks. The city of Columbus, which had adopted the relevant local taxes, received its full $1 million award.
County Engineer Danny Hollander warned that without additional funding, the county could only afford to repave roughly 10 miles of road in 2026; one-third of what we’d done in prior years. “The bottom line is: our roads are going to suck,” London said flatly.
To fill the gap, the County Council voted to transfer $1.5 million from the county’s general fund money that would otherwise be available for other community needs, just to maintain basic road maintenance levels.
Some Good News, But Not a Victory
Here’s where the story gets a little more complicated.
Earlier this month, Governor Braun signed a new bill into law, and Commissioner London confirmed that it will mean more than $843,500 in road funding that had previously been denied to the county will now flow to Bartholomew County. The county applied the restored CCMG funds immediately, with a required 50/50 match, which could amount to $1.687 million for road improvements. Bids for the road overlay program have already come in from three contractors, and a selection is expected soon. Combined with the $1.5 million the council had already transferred, the county will have meaningful resources to tackle its roads this year.
I’m glad we’re getting some of this money back. But let’s be honest about what this is and what it isn’t.
It is a partial, one-time fix. It doesn’t change the underlying law. It doesn’t restore the Community Crossings program to its former scale. It doesn’t create a sustainable, predictable funding stream for years to come. And it doesn’t change the fact that the new Lane Mile Distribution program, the long-term replacement for competitive grants, still requires a wheel tax to access.
The county has until September 2026 to decide whether to adopt a wheel tax to qualify for Lane Mile Distribution funds beginning in fiscal year 2028. That decision is still pending, and it is not simple.
The Bigger Problem
Here’s what I want Bartholomew County residents to understand clearly: we are being put in a position where the state is trying to force a local tax we don’t need, under threat of losing money our residents already paid in.
Every time a Bartholomew County resident buys gas, a portion of that sales tax goes to the state’s road-funding revenue. That money is supposed to come back to our community for road maintenance. HEA 1461 changed the rules so that communities that haven’t adopted the wheel tax get less, or in our case, nothing at all.
That’s not fiscal policy. That’s a penalty. And it’s one that falls on Bartholomew County residents who have nothing to do with the state legislature’s funding decisions.
There’s also a real concern about double taxation. If the county adopts a wheel tax and a city like Columbus does as well, residents living within city limits could be charged both. HEA 1461 explicitly allows that. That’s not fair to working families who are already stretched thin.
Other counties are wrestling with the same tensions. Some have adopted minimum wheel taxes just to stay eligible for state money, openly acknowledging they’re doing it under duress. One council member in New Whiteland called the law a “shell game.” Some counties are already talking about repealing their wheel taxes if future legislatures change the rules again. Knox County is even floating the idea of phasing its wheel tax out by 2029.
This isn’t how state and local government should work.
Where I Stand
I am not going to support raising taxes on Bartholomew County residents to satisfy a state mandate that I believe is wrong.
If the county ultimately determines, through a thorough, transparent analysis, that a wheel tax is truly in the best long-term interests of residents, then that conversation should happen openly and honestly, with a full accounting of the dollars involved. But it should never have happened simply because the state legislature applied pressure. And it should never happen without residents being fully informed about both what it costs and what it’s being used to access.
What I will continue to fight for is accountability from the state, accountability for why our county was shut out of CCMG funding without explanation, accountability for the process INDOT uses to make those decisions, and accountability for a legislative process that passed a bill punishing fiscally responsible counties while calling it road reform.
Our roads matter. Our residents’ wallets matter too. Both things can be true at the same time.
Leah Beyer is a candidate for office in Bartholomew County. She previously served as President of the Bartholomew County Council.
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