By SCOTT SANDER
WISH-TV | wishtv.com
Mayors and councils across Indiana are confronting, essentially, the same crisis at the same time: the financial crunch caused by the state’s property tax reform.
The numbers vary by city and town, but across all 92 counties the message is much the same: the passage of Senate Bill 1 at the state level, cutting property taxes, is forcing municipalities to scramble to cover shortfalls.
Finkam
Carmel Mayor Sue Finkam addressed the crunch in a Tuesday visit on Daybreak. “We expect to lose about $10 million from what we expected to receive this year. Our teams have been hard at work trying to find efficiencies and new ways of dealing with this new reality.”
Finkam says it will be a mix of belt-tightening and finding new funding. Eventually that is likely to mean the implementation of a local income tax, but that cannot happen immediately. Finkam agrees that the steepest challenges are here and now.
“This year, meaning 2026 and ’27, are the roughest years,” Finkam predicted. “In ’28, supposedly, and it could change, we can levy a new income tax. However, in the meantime, we have to figure out how to do all that we need to do with what we have. We could perhaps increase some fees, and we’re looking at that, but we’re trying to keep our expenses as low as possible, but yet delivering high-quality services.”
The issue transcends political affiliation; Finkam indicated she and mayors from both sides of the aisle are working together to come up with solutions that can benefit many communities.
“We have a trade organization, Accelerate Indiana Municipalities, that certainly has been a leader to us, with us, in talking to the state legislature. We always do get together a couple times a year,” she said, then shared that she keeps a close connection with her peers in the cities surrounding Carmel.
“I also have a pretty strong text thread with the other mayors in Hamilton County, so we’re constantly talking about this. We’re talking about what efficiencies they have, how are they staffing different departments, how we can collaborate on purchasing agreements, and other ways to save dollars. So yeah, we’re really active.”
This story was originally published by WISH-TV at wishtv.com/news/politics/property-tax-cut-impact.