INDIANAPOLIS — Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett recently vetoed a proposal to increase vehicle and wheel taxes to help pay for road improvements in Marion County.
Proposal 192 was approved by the Indianapolis City-County Council on July 6. The proposal says that Marion County residents with passenger vehicles pay a flat $100 annual fee at registration, rather than the average fee of $20 that is currently in place.
Under the proposal, vehicles subjected to county wheel taxes would pay a flat fee of $240 at registration, rather than the old fee that ranged between $10 to $40.
The proposed new fees were expected to generate $356 million in funding for road improvement projects over the next five years and would ensure Indy gets up to $50 million in new state road funding starting next year.
Indianapolis has a $279 million construction budget for the Department of Public Works, but estimates to fully address years of deferred maintenance run from $600 million to almost a billion. There is a significant funding gap to maintain the 8,500 lane miles of roads in the city.