Councillor Jared Evans statement in response to recently announced corrections to Indiana’s road funding formula
For Immediate Release
September 17, 2019
COUNCILLOR RELEASES STATEMENT ON CHANGES TO ROAD FUNDING
Indianapolis – Councillor Jared Evans has released the following statement in response to recently announced corrections to Indiana’s road funding formula:
On Thursday, September 12, Journal-Gazette reported that Indiana officials recently discovered and have now disclosed an error in the distribution formula for the State’s Motor Vehicle Highway Account. This account is the source of road funding distributions made by the State Auditor to local governments, and is funded through fuel taxes, vehicle registration costs, and other transportation related fees. Correction of this error will have significant positive implications for infrastructure spending in Marion County.
As this information has now been made public I want to say for the sake of transparency that several weeks ago, I, along with members of the Council staff, met with Indianapolis DPW Director Dan Parker to discuss locating funds to address the priorities and recommendations of this Commission. During that discussion, Director Parker revealed that he and others from Mayor Hogsett’s administration were then in very productive negotiations with the State Auditor to correct this error in road funding distribution. We were asked to hold this information confidential while negotiations were ongoing, a request Council staff and I honored. We are happy to have learned about progress having been made in this conversation.
On behalf of this Commission and the Marion County residents we represent, I want to thank State Auditor Tera Klutz for working diligently and collaboratively to correct this oversight. Doing so has required her to notify many local government officials they will be receiving less funding than anticipated from now on; that is not an easy task. State Auditor Klutz has done a difficult thing, but the right thing. The same thanks are offered to Mayor Joe Hogsett, his Chief of Staff Thomas Cook, and DPW Director Dan Parker for their leadership and advocacy for Marion County residents, and for their work negotiating a resolution with the State. Finally, I want to thank the members of this Commission for undertaking this vital work to address the infrastructure needs of Marion County. Their efforts have been a catalyst for these important developments.
I am encouraged by these developments; however, they necessarily impel this body to ask additional questions on behalf of the Marion County residents we represent, for instance:
How many years the State has inadvertently applied an incorrect formula when distributing funds?
What is the full reach, and what are the full implications of, this miscalculation?
What do we, as a Commission, do with this new information?
With respect to these questions, I have two requests this evening for my fellow Commissioners: first, I ask for your support and willingness to extend our process long enough to allow Director Parker and his team to fully incorporate the revenue adjustments into the City’s 4-year transportation & infrastructure plan, at which time he will be invited to appear again before this Commission to address our questions. Second, I ask that you defer your questions on this issue until that time, and proceed tonight to debate and decide on the recommendations before you that are unrelated to the Indiana Motor Vehicle Highway Account.
As always, I thank you for the time and energy each of you has dedicated to the work of this Commission as we seek to address the needs of Marion County’s residents and its infrastructure system.
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