Indiana's Counties Going Into the 2026 Election

Why now: the councils on this ballot make the 2028 decision

On Nov. 3, Indiana voters choose the people who will run county government through 2030:

"Uncontested" means no more candidates than seats, not counting write-ins. Marion's City-County Council is not in these counts. Township trustees and boards are also on the ballot (939 and 921 races).

• Why it matters: council members elected now serve 2027–2030. Between July 1 and Oct. 1, 2028, every county council must adopt its new local income tax under the 2025 tax overhaul. It will decide how much the county keeps, how much goes to fire and EMS, and how it lines up with the cities that adopt their own rates for the first time. The people elected this fall make that decision.
• The uncontested share: 60% of council races and 57% of commissioner races are uncontested, so in many counties the decision-makers for 2028 are already known.

Summary

Indiana's 92 county governments spend $5.96 billion in 2026, up 21% since 2023, while population grew 1.3%. They are absorbing the 2025 tax overhaul (SEA 1) at the same moment public safety (jails, EMS, 911) is becoming their largest and fastest-growing cost. This study is the first statewide, side-by-side look at how each county is handling it, built from the law, state data and two years of county minutes.

• The law puts the money in the council's hands. The council sets every rate, appropriation, salary and staff position, and from 2028 it alone adopts local income taxes. There is no county comptroller; the auditor is the fiscal officer, and the state (DLGF and the State Board of Accounts) certifies and audits.
• SEA 1 takes revenue from almost every county. State estimates show county governments losing $102M (2026), $118M (2027) and $184M (2028), with 82 of 92 behind prior law by 2028. — Lake loses the most ($46M, −20%). — Tax-cap losses already exceed 10% of the levy in 27 counties, led by Delaware, Wayne, Vigo and St. Joseph.
• The income-tax rebuild was delayed a year. HEA 1210-2026 moved it to 2028, for 2029 rates. Cities of 3,500+ then get their own rate, so the county–city split is the defining local negotiation ahead. Roughly 35–40 counties have started formal task-force talks.
• Most counties absorbed rather than taxed. — About 8 raised the local income tax, almost all for the jail, EMS or 911. — About 13 adopted wheel taxes, usually citing state road money. — None adopted the optional homestead-credit income tax. It would have raised about $800M a year at its full 0.3%, all returned as credits on homeowners' bills, with no new money for any county. — Budgets held near flat, with 1–4% raises, a handful of hiring freezes, and costs moved into income-tax funds.
• Pressure is concentrated. It shows in Harrison (a $12M gap for 2027), Marshall, LaPorte, Pulaski, Morgan, Decatur, Knox and Floyd (about 44 days of general-fund cash). Elsewhere it shows as split votes and deferred decisions.
• Careful handling has recognizable features. — Henry and New Castle quantified losses together. — Howard and Kokomo coordinated a jail tax. — Hendricks priced a $90M project two ways under a cash policy. — Whitley and Tippecanoe built reserves on purpose. — Clark, Delaware and Boone started the 2028 negotiation early with structure.
• What councils talk about most: income tax and SEA 1, the jail, roads, pay, courthouses, EMS and 911. The newest land-use fight is data centers: 29 counties moved toward a moratorium, 3 banned them, 12 wrote siting rules, and 9 have an approved or building project.
• Jails are a major cost, and several need new buildings. Jails and sheriffs take $1.04B of 2026 county budgets. Grant, Madison and Monroe hold about 30% more people than their stated limits, and the state is leaving more of its prisoners in county jails (1,097 in August, paid $42 a day). Allen, Howard, Madison and Monroe have jail projects of about $100M to $270M.
• Road money now comes with a vehicle-tax choice. Formula money ($485M) dwarfs grants. A new lane-mile payment goes only to the 67 counties with both vehicle taxes. Contrary to what many officials said, the wheel tax is not required for Community Crossings grants.
• Assessments jumped, but bills follow net value. New state cost tables raised a typical home’s base price 24% in one year and a pole barn’s 145%. Statewide gross value is up about 11%. SEA 1’s growing deductions mean many counties expect flat or falling net value, which pushes rates up.
• Schools share the squeeze. They lose $191–336M a year under SEA 1, and public enrollment is down 2.7% since 2018–19 as vouchers become universal. A 2025 law shortened the notice needed to end busing to one year, and a record 39 school referendums are on the Nov. 3 ballot.

County government in law

Read from the official 2026 Indiana Code (iga.in.gov), the Indiana Constitution and DLGF's 2026 budget calendar.

Two boards with different jobs

• Board of commissioners: the executive, and in most counties the legislature. Three members serve staggered four-year terms; each lives in a district but is elected countywide. They: — run county departments and hire the county administrator; — approve claims and sign or review contracts; — build and maintain roads and the jail; — pass ordinances, including zoning (IC 36-2-2; IC 36-7-4-601).
• County council: the money. Seven members: four by district and three at large. The council: — fixes tax rates and levies; — makes every appropriation; — sets every salary and the number of positions in every office; — approves borrowing; — adopts local income taxes (IC 36-2-3, 36-2-5). — It can cut a budget request, and needs a three-fourths vote to add spending beyond an estimate.
• Exceptions: — Marion County has a single executive (the mayor of Indianapolis) and the 25-member City-County Council (IC 36-3). — Lake County elects every seat by district and formally separates executive and legislative powers. — A few counties can opt into that split model (IC 36-2-3.5).

The other elected offices

• Term limits: the Constitution limits the clerk, auditor, recorder, treasurer, sheriff and coroner to 8 years in any 12. The surveyor, assessor, prosecutor, commissioners and council members have no limit.
• Staffing: every elected officer hires deputies and staff, but only within the positions and pay the council approves.
• Discipline: a 2026 law requires every county to adopt a personnel handbook. It also confirms that each elected officer keeps the final say on disciplining their own staff (IC 36-2-21).
• Contracts: an officer's contracts must be signed by the commissioners or sent to them for review, and the commissioners may void a contract that skipped that step (IC 36-2-2.9).

The budget year, step by step

Limits the county works within:

• Levy growth cap. Since 2026, appeals above the cap are allowed only for annexation or emergencies.
• Tax caps. The constitutional caps are 1%, 2% and 3% of assessed value. Revenue lost to them cannot be made up by a higher levy.
• Debt. Total debt is limited to 2% of adjusted assessed value. Since July 2025, any bond or lease in a county with a debt-service rate above $0.25 goes to remonstrance or referendum (road projects exempt).
• Audits. The State Board of Accounts audits at least every four years.

Who decides what

New in 2025–2026

• Local income tax rebuild, delayed to 2028 adoption and 2029 rates (HEA 1210-2026). From then on the council is the only county body that adopts it. The "MUST" task force lets counties negotiate shares with cities and towns now.
• Levy appeals narrowed; debt referendums triggered more often (SEA 1-2025).
• 2026 laws for counties: — personnel handbooks; — the commissioners may set the county administrator's salary; — training penalties for coroners; — community corrections trust funds; — jail medical copays up to $30; — required jail cooperation with ICE; — civilian police oversight boards limited to advising; — township merger pairings.
• Data centers that sign an agreement with a county or city must pay that local government up to 1% of the sales tax they don't pay on electricity.
• Zoning: new housing and zoning mandates.
• Not changed in 2026: Health First Indiana, wind and solar siting rules, and data center zoning.
• To confirm: — HEA 1210's summary says it removed the rule that current income-tax rates expire after 2028 unless renewed, but the 2026 code text still contains it. The enrolled act should be read before advising a county on this. — Two versions of the jail standards statute exist (2026 and 2027).

The money: 92 county budgets

This section uses a comparable dataset of every county government for 2023–2026, built from:

• Indiana Gateway adopted budgets and annual financial reports;
• DLGF certified budgets, levies and tax-cap credits;
• State Budget Agency local income tax distributions;
• Census population.

Figures are for the county unit only, not cities, schools or townships. Files: data/county_finance.csv (368 rows, 97 fields) plus growth, function and debt tables.

How big, and how fast it grew

• Growth: budgets grew about 16 times faster than population. The typical county's adopted budget rose 21.3%.
• Fastest growth: Clinton (+59%), Fountain, Whitley and Floyd lead on certified budgets, the cleanest comparison. Hamilton's adopted budget rose 45%, including a new food-and-beverage tax fund, 911 dispatch income tax money and debt payments.
• Size: the five largest, Marion, Lake, Allen, Hamilton and St. Joseph, hold 31% of the total. Marion is not comparable to the others, because most of its government runs through the consolidated city.

[embedded content: Indiana Gateway budget forms 1 and 4B, 2026 adopted budgets; functions assigned from fund and department names (about 2% unclassified); data/county\_finance\_functions\_long.csv\]

• Public safety (sheriff, jail, dispatch, EMS) rose from 26.7% of budgets in 2023 to 29.3% in 2026, from $1.32B to $1.74B. It is now the largest and fastest-growing share, and it matches the jail and EMS projects showing up across county minutes.
• Roads fell from 15.3% to 14.7% of budgets between 2025 and 2026. Health fell from 4.1% to 3.1%, and federal relief (ARP) money fell from 2.1% to 1.5%, most of it now Lake's $75M construction line.
• Welfare and social services are under 1% of county budgets.

Small counties pay more per resident

• Highest per resident: Newton ($2,030), Pulaski, Pike, Warren, White, Fountain, Benton and Parke, all under 26,000 people. Every county must run the same set of offices, courts and a jail whatever its size, so fixed costs are spread over fewer residents.
• Lowest (after Marion): Delaware ($572), Clark, Johnson, Tippecanoe and Madison.
• Why this matters for the tax overhaul: the LIT rebuild in 2028 sets one cap for every county. Small counties with high fixed costs have the least room.

Reserves: most have them; a few are thin

• The typical county ended 2025 with 416 days of cash across its own funds, and a general fund reserve equal to 68% of a year's general fund spending. Statewide, rainy-day funds held $354M.
• Thinnest: Floyd and Knox ended 2025 with about 44 days of general fund cash, down from stronger positions in 2023. Crawford, Wells, Greene, Switzerland, Cass, Tippecanoe and Scott follow.
• High totals hide restricted money. Most cash sits in restricted funds (roads, income tax set-asides, debt), so a county can hold high total cash and still have a thin general fund. That is exactly the fund that pays for sheriffs and courts.

Debt

• $1.99B was reported by 69 of 91 counties at the end of 2025; 22 reported none.
• Marion holds $722M, mostly its Criminal Justice Center ($637M). Outside Marion, the big borrowing is also for jails and justice centers.
• New limit: since July 2025, any new bond or lease in a county whose debt-service rate tops $0.25 goes to remonstrance or referendum.

Property tax vs. income tax

• Statewide, property tax is 63% of what county units raise from levy plus local income tax.
• Leaning on income tax: Ripley, Owen, Floyd and Boone, the counties most exposed to how the 2028 income-tax rebuild treats them.
• Leaning on property tax: Lake and Porter (about 87%), the most exposed to the deduction changes and the tax caps.

Revenue already lost to the tax caps

• Most exposed: Delaware (25% of its levy lost to credits), Wayne (23%), Vigo (23%), St. Joseph (21%), Madison and Howard (18%). The same counties led in 2025.
• Largest dollar losses in 2026: Marion ($27.9M), St. Joseph ($17.6M), Vanderburgh, Lake, Vigo and Allen.

Limits of the data:

• Functions are assigned line by line from Gateway fund, department and account codes (revised Oct. 12, 2026, which moved highway money out of general government and removed duplicated budget lines). About 1% of budgets and 5% of 2025 actual spending stay unclassified.
• Some adopted-budget growth (Floyd, Owen, Porter, Boone) reflects funds newly added to Gateway.
• Debt is what counties self-report.
• Lawrence's 2025 financial report is missing.
• There are no 2026 actuals yet.

The 2025 tax overhaul and what it means for counties

Senate Enrolled Act 1-2025 (P.L.68-2025) is the largest change to Indiana local finance since the 2008 property tax caps. It does three things at once:

• cuts homeowner bills;
• slows the growth of local levies;
• rebuilds the local income tax (LIT).

A 2026 law, HEA 1210 (P.L.157-2026), then pushed the income-tax rebuild back one year. Every county decision in this study sits inside that timeline.

What changed for property taxes

• Homeowners. The $48,000 homestead standard deduction steps down to zero by taxes paid in 2031 ($40k, $30k, $20k, $10k, then $0). The supplemental deduction rises from 40% to 66.7%. A new credit of 10% of the bill, up to $300, applies automatically from 2026.
• Rentals, other residential and farmland get a new deduction that grows from 6% to 33.4% of assessed value by 2031.
• Seniors and the disabled. The over-65 and blind/disabled deductions became flat $150 and $125 credits. The over-65 tax-cap credit now reaches incomes up to $60,000 single and $70,000 joint.
• Business equipment under $2 million is exempt from taxes paid in 2027.
• Levy growth. It was capped at 4% for 2026. The 2027 growth figure is 6.0%.
• Referendums may be held only at general elections, with new ballot wording.

Why this squeezes counties even with growth allowed. Deductions shrink the tax base, so rates rise, and more bills hit the constitutional 1%/2%/3% caps. Above the caps, a higher rate raises no more money. Analysts presenting to the county commissioners' association in 2025 (Policy Analytics, Baker Tilly, AIC) projected the average rate passing $3 per $100 by 2031.

What it costs local government

The state's Legislative Services Agency estimated, against prior law:

• Others in 2028: schools lose an estimated $336M and cities and towns $231M.
• Taxpayers: homestead bills fall $369–467M a year, while business land and buildings pay $108M more, rising to $402M.
• HEA 1210 restores about $259M statewide in 2028, mostly by keeping the LIT relief credits a year longer.

[embedded content: LSA unit-level estimates for SEA 1-2025 (Apr. 9, 2025), county government unit only; data/sea1\_county\_impacts.csv\]

In 2026 every county government loses revenue (median −5.5%). By 2028 the median loss is 7.8%.

• The largest loss is Lake County, −$46.1M (−20%). Lake also has one of the highest LIT relief rates in the state (1.0% in 2026), and the overhaul phases those relief credits out.
• Next in line: Grant, St. Joseph, Fayette, Hancock, Cass, Hendricks and Madison, each down 12–15%.
• Ten counties come out ahead, led by Carroll (+33%), Pulaski (+21%) and Parke (+10%).
• Caveats: these unit estimates were made before the 2025 cleanup act (HEA 1427) and HEA 1210. They also leave out the flat credits, which LSA puts at up to about $200M a year statewide. Treat them as direction and scale, not a forecast.

The new local income tax, and the delay

• New structure (adopted 2028, in effect 2029; distributions from 2030): — total cap of 2.9%; — a county rate up to 1.2%; — a fire and EMS rate up to 0.4%; — a rate for townships and other non-municipal units up to 0.2% (these three together up to 1.7%); — a separate rate of up to 1.2% for cities and towns of 3,500 or more, which today receive LIT shares set by the county.
• Relief credits end. The property-tax-relief LIT, levy-freeze rates and LIT councils end in 2029 instead of 2028. In 2026, 56 counties used a relief rate.
• If a county adopts nothing, its current rates expire Dec. 31, 2028, except what is needed to cover 1.25 times LIT-backed debt.
• The split with cities. The municipal association (Aim) projects that about half of the cities and towns of 3,500+ lose LIT revenue under the split. That makes the county–city conversation the central local decision of the next two years.

What counties have to decide, and when

Who gains and who pays, as the analysts put it:

• Larry DeBoer (Purdue) and the commissioners' 2025 conference panel expect rates to rise. They say lower-value homes and business real estate fare worst.
• Michael Hicks (Ball State CBER) calls the business tax cuts the biggest change.
• County-level detail on 2026 actual results, and on which counties adopted the homestead-credit LIT or formed a task force, comes from the county sweep below.

How counties are responding

Researchers read council and commissioner minutes, ordinances, budget orders and free local news for all 92 counties, January 2025 to October 2026. Every county was recorded on the same fields: income tax actions, 2026 budget, what officials said about SEA 1, projects, ordinances, topics, other offices, schools and process. The records are in data/county_responses_[a–d].json and notes/counties_[a–d].md.

Coverage gaps. A full audit of county websites on Oct. 11, 2026 (council and commissioners checked separately) found 2025–26 minutes online for at least one board in 79 counties, but most are image-only scans. In the other 13 counties:

• Meeting video only: Pulaski, Sullivan, Tipton and Union.
• Agendas only: Boone, Lawrence, Madison and Newton.
• Sites that refuse automated access: Allen, Clay, Elkhart and St. Joseph.
• Nothing current online: Orange, whose minutes stop in 2021.

In several other counties one board posts and the other does not (for example the Adams, Brown, Fountain and Montgomery councils). Some boards post minutes for only a fraction of meetings.

Those counties rest on news, state data and earlier profile research. Several more have missing months.

The big picture: absorb now, negotiate for 2028

Most councils did not raise taxes in response to SEA 1. They held budgets nearly flat, gave small raises and moved costs between funds, while starting the conversation with their cities about the 2028 income-tax split.

• The pattern behind the increases: almost every new local income tax is tied to a jail, EMS or 911 dispatch. These are the costs counties cannot cut and the property tax can no longer grow to cover.

Where the pressure is showing

Split votes were common where the choices were hardest: St. Joseph's budget passed 5–4, Switzerland's department cuts 4–3, and there were splits in Cass, Crawford, Dearborn, Floyd, Dubois and Monroe.

What careful handling looks like

The question behind this section is which counties are handling the change best. We compare counties on evidence in the record, not on outcomes or politics:

• Did they get outside numbers?
• Did they plan beyond one year?
• Did they protect reserves?
• Did they work with their cities and towns?
• Did they decide before deadlines, in public?

The opposite signals in the record:

• one-time money used for ongoing costs;
• decisions taken without projections;
• tie votes that stall budgets;
• no posted minutes, so the public can't see the reasoning at all.

These are not grades. A county can be careful and still face a large gap, and the counties with the hardest arithmetic (high tax-cap losses, thin reserves, heavy reliance on income-tax relief credits) have the least room to choose. The next step is to score every county on these indicators from the same data, alongside its SEA 1 exposure, so the comparison is fair.

What councils are talking about

[embedded content: Keyword counts per meeting document in the county sweep, top eight topics per county; 82 counties with topic data; data/county\_responses\_\[a–d\].json. Approximate: OCR and keyword matching.\]

• Jails and justice buildings. These are the single largest commitments in county government right now. — Allen is building a nearly $268M jail under a federal court order. Marion's Criminal Justice Center carries $637M of debt. — Monroe declared a jail-overcrowding emergency. Madison, Owen and Randolph are working on jail projects, and Hendricks is weighing a $90M judicial center. — Jail income taxes were added or proposed in Grant, Greene, Shelby, Marshall and Tippecanoe.
• EMS and 911. Counties are taking over or propping up ambulance service and dispatch. New EMS income tax rates came in Carroll, Martin and Union, and are proposed in LaPorte; dispatch money was added in Shelby and Wells.
• Roads. Wheel taxes are spreading (about 13 counties). Officials often said they were needed for state Community Crossings grants, but INDOT's 2025 guidance says they are not. Under IC 8-23-30-2(k), having both a wheel tax and an excise surtax qualifies a county for a separate lane-mile distribution instead, which paid $28.5M to 67 counties in June 2026. Roads are also where budgets dropped as a share in 2026.
• Pay and health insurance. Raises of 1–4% were typical, with stipends instead of raises in Orange and capped raises in Noble. Rising health-insurance costs pushed Dubois to move $4.2M into an income-tax fund.
• Data centers. This is the newest land-use fight. At least 16 counties adopted or advanced moratoriums, pauses or rules in 2025–26, including: — Franklin, Fulton, Howard, Huntington and LaGrange (moratoriums); — St. Joseph (a 6–3 vote to begin a ban process); — eleven counties from Rush to Whitley, and several more from Lawrence to Ripley (counted there together with solar rules). — Others are signing deals: Jasper approved Amazon data-center tax abatements with payments of $1.25M per building per year. Sullivan, which has no zoning, has a large data-center park going ahead under a negotiated agreement. — A 2026 law lets a county or city that signs an agreement with a data center collect up to 1% of the sales tax the center doesn't pay on electricity.
• Solar and wind siting continues in about 15 counties, usually as ordinance updates.
• Schools barely come up in county minutes. Cass included Logansport schools in its SEA 1 study, and Dubois questioned school resource officer use. Harrison moved $2M of school property-tax relief to a county mechanism. Otherwise, county and school finances are discussed separately, even though they share the same tax base and caps.

What this says: county government is being pulled toward public safety (jails, EMS, dispatch) at the moment its property-tax growth is limited. The income tax is becoming the main lever, which makes the 2028 county–city split the defining local negotiation.

The other county offices

The council sets every office's budget and staff, so the offices show up in minutes mostly as requests: positions, pay, overtime and equipment. Across 92 counties, a clear picture emerges of where each office is under strain. Personnel disputes and litigation involving individuals are kept on a separate review list, not here.

Sheriff and jail: the biggest pressure point

• Staffing. — Tippecanoe cites 60–80% turnover among corrections staff. — Putnam needs at least four jailers per shift and asked for four more jail deputies. — Gibson had 16–17 of 21 corrections posts filled. — Lake's corrections officers work 16-hour shifts in an overcrowded jail while their union seeks a raise. — Crawford's and Orange's deputies are paid below their neighbors', and Orange offers a $5,000 hiring incentive.
• Overcrowding and buildings. — Monroe declared an overcrowding emergency. — Grant, Vigo and Lake report recurring overcrowding. — Madison is moving out of a 1984 jail rated for 207. — Allen is building a nearly $268M jail under a federal court order, and Marion carries $637M in Criminal Justice Center debt.
• Money flows. — Jail and public-safety income taxes now pay for jail officers, inmate medical care (Henry $750,000; Jackson $120,000), locks and maintenance. — Counties also earn per-day payments for holding federal and ICE detainees (Cass, Clark, Clay, Clinton, Marion). A 2026 law (SEA 76) requires county jails to honor ICE detainer requests, notify the bail judge, and follow new state jail standards on ICE cooperation. The attorney general can sue and seek civil penalties of up to $10,000 per knowing violation, but not against a jail the state found compliant at its last inspection. A state judge has blocked those penalties against the Monroe County sheriff while a challenge proceeds (hearing set for Oct. 27, 2026).
• Jail populations where reported: — Blackford rose from 53 to 71; — Gibson fell from about 119 to about 95; — Perry fell to the 50s from 100–110; — Wells held at 55–62.

Prosecutors and public defenders

• Prosecutor staffing is the recurring request: — Vanderburgh asked for more than six new prosecutors and Howard for six deputies (tabled). — Tippecanoe has nine attorney vacancies. — Decatur, Fulton and Jasper each sought added positions.
• Public defense. Blackford added a full-time public defender ($67,200), and Gibson added part of an attorney for caseload. Spencer noted the state reimburses 40% of public defense costs. Hancock is pursuing pay parity between prosecutors and public defenders.
• State cuts. Decatur faces a possible 20–25% state cut to community corrections, and Huntington's work-release program and Jefferson's drug court face state funding cuts. Kosciusko's probation officers were hit by a state pay freeze.

Auditor and treasurer: the people running the numbers

• Auditors are the in-house analysts of SEA 1. In Jay, Shelby and Owen they led the local income tax and task-force work, and Madison's auditor warned publicly about rainy-day use and jail bonds.
• Homestead audits. Clark ($465,892 contract), Hendricks, Jefferson, Scott and Starke hired firms to find homes claiming deductions they don't qualify for. This is now a revenue source as deductions grow.
• Accounting problems surfaced by the State Board of Accounts: — Lake missed a relief-credit cash transfer for three years, and its council asked for a joint meeting. — Starke was told to reconcile its accounts. — Putnam's fringe-benefit policy did not follow IRS rules. — Rush found a relief-rate error in state data.

Assessor

• Rising assessments. State cost-table increases raised assessments sharply, including on farm buildings: — Morgan: +32%, then +24%; — Switzerland: +35%; — Parke: lost geothermal and solar deductions.
• Workload. Assessors say they are understaffed relative to parcel counts (Switzerland). Utility and solar assessment timing affects every unit's revenue (Pike).
• Why it matters: assessed value is the base every SEA 1 deduction and tax cap is applied to.

Clerk, recorder, coroner, surveyor

• Clerks appear mostly through election costs and staffing; Lawrence made an emergency voter-registration hire in October 2026.
• Coroners: Jasper's coroner asked for a forensic center, part of a $2.08M five-year plan from Baker Tilly. A 2026 law adds training penalties for coroners.
• Recorders and surveyors rarely appear in budget debates; their work is largely fee-funded or tied to drainage.

EMS and 911

These are not elected offices, but they are where the most new money is going:

• EMS departments are losing staff. Cass lost 6 EMS employees in 12 months, and Posey lost four to Evansville's fire department.
• EMS levies fall short: Harrison's collected $197,206 against $630,000 expected.
• 911 centers need new systems and night-shift pay (Benton, Martin, Wabash, Delaware).
• New income tax money for EMS and dispatch came in Carroll, Martin, Shelby, Steuben, Union and Wells.

What this says: the sheriff and the jail are the fastest-growing claim on county budgets. The offices that keep the tax base accurate (auditor and assessor) are where small investments, like homestead audits and better data, return the most.

Schools: money, enrollment, and where kids go

Schools are not county government, but they share the same tax base, the same tax caps and the same 2025 overhaul. Their decisions shape every county: bus routes, building closures and referendums on the county ballot. Data: the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE), the Legislative Services Agency (LSA), the Department of Local Government Finance (DLGF), and 171 school board race profiles. District file: data/school_corps.csv, 290 districts.

Funding: state aid up, local property tax down

• State formula (HEA 1001-2025). — The base grant per student goes $6,681 → $6,967 (2025–26, +4.3%) → $7,071 (2026–27, +1.5%). — Total tuition support rises 3.8% and 3.0%. Without vouchers it is about +3.4% and +1.7%, against 2.7% inflation. — The $160M textbook fund was folded in, so part of the increase replaces textbook money. — New rules: a $45,000 minimum teacher salary, and 65% of tuition support must go to teacher pay.
• SEA 1-2025 property tax effects. LSA estimates schools lose $191M (2026), $217M (2027) and $336M (2028) against prior law. Operating levy growth was capped at 4% for 2026.
• Referendums now go only on November general-election ballots. The question must state the dollar effect on a median home.
• Debt. Lower debt-rate thresholds mean 154 districts would face a petition fight and 36 a referendum for new building projects.
• Charter sharing. From 2028, every district shares operating levy money with charter schools in its boundaries, phasing from 25% to 100% by 2031. Operating referendums first levied after 2027 must be shared too. — LSA estimates about $4.5M statewide in 2028. — Indianapolis and Lake County districts with November 2026 referendums have published projected shares, e.g. Washington Township $357,820 and Wayne Township $332,242. — WFYI totals more than $49M for about 60 charter schools.
• One district dissolved. SEA 1 dissolves Union School Corporation (Randolph County) on July 1, 2027. The district is suing the state.

Referendums: a record year

• The November 2026 list includes the new Indianapolis Public Education Corporation (IPS plus charters, $95M a year for 4 years) and Whiting's $39.3M building question, the only construction question.
• Several questions name busing as a purpose: Beech Grove, Tri-Creek, Whiting, Crown Point, River Forest, Smith-Green, Shelbyville, Oak Hill and Elwood.
• The district file lists each question's rate, maximum levy and median-home effect.

Enrollment: where kids are going

• Public district enrollment fell 2.7%, from 997,027 (2018–19) to 969,769 (2025–26). 202 of 288 districts shrank, 76 of them by 10% or more.
• Private school enrollment rose from 85,539 to 102,668.
• Vouchers: 80,548 students in 2025–26 ($548M). 69.5% had never attended an Indiana public school.
• Charters: 56,675 students, 5% of the state.
• Vouchers become universal in 2026–27; LSA projects $673M.
• Transfers: in fall 2025, 149,486 students attended school outside their home district, 49,689 of them at charters.

• Real gains are suburban: Westfield-Washington (+2,277), Franklin Township (+1,918), Brownsburg (+1,331), Center Grove (+1,300), Avon (+969).
• Paper gains are virtual. Big gains on paper in Clarksville, Union, Beech Grove and Cloverdale are virtual-school partnerships enrolling students from across the state.
• The pattern: urban and small rural districts lose students to suburbs, charters, private schools and virtual programs. They lose the matching state money while their buildings and routes stay the same size.

Getting there: busing

• The law changed in 2025. HEA 1002-2025 cut the notice a district must give before ending busing from three years to one. It also repealed two busing sections, one of which let districts limit busing to the start and end of the school day.
• Tri-Creek (Lake County) voted in August 2026 to end busing on Aug. 1, 2028, for more than 2,200 daily riders. It cited a $3M deficit and SEA 1; a referendum is on the November ballot.
• Mississinewa (Grant) voted to cut its transportation program within two years.
• Fewer routes through bell times: Decatur Township and Yorktown changed bell schedules to run fewer routes. Wayne Township bought fewer buses. Shelbyville and Nettle Creek cut routes.
• South Bend's finance chief said the district could have to "end all transportation" without a 2028 referendum.
• Drivers: pay is rising district by district (e.g. Prairie Heights' daily rate went from $109.50 to $115.50). No statewide shortage data exists.
• No law on transfer students. No 2025–26 law addresses busing for students who transfer. As routes shrink, how kids get to school becomes a family cost and a county issue (roads, safety, sheriff and school resource officers).

Buildings and schedules

• Closures or mergers: Elkhart (4 elementary schools), Fort Wayne, South Dearborn, Southwest Parke, Madison-Greene, Greenfield-Central and Central Noble. Martinsville, Warsaw and Vigo have plans underway.
• Big projects without a referendum: some fast-growing districts are still building large projects through bonds that don't need a vote, e.g. Westfield (about $88M) and Warsaw (bond up to $143M).
• Four-day weeks: only Vinton Elementary uses one. A 2026 law (HEA 1266) sets strict conditions for a waiver, including busing for families who opt for five days.

What school boards are debating

Approximate counts across 171 board race profiles:

What's still unpublished: fall 2026 enrollment and voucher counts. District-level charter-sharing estimates are due from IDOE in August 2027.

Method, data gaps and sources

How the study was built

• Law: the official 2026 Indiana Code (iga.in.gov) and Indiana Administrative Code, read section by section, plus DLGF's 2026 budget calendar and memos.
• Tax overhaul: the enrolled text of SEA 1-2025 and HEA 1210-2026 with their LSA fiscal notes; LSA's unit-by-unit estimates; DLGF guidance memos; State Budget Agency income tax certifications (2025–2027).
• Budgets: Indiana Gateway adopted budgets (Forms 1 and 4B) and annual financial reports; DLGF certified budgets, levies and tax-cap credits; Census population. Pass-through funds were removed by fund rules.
• County responses: council and commissioner minutes (many scanned and read with OCR), ordinances, budget orders and free local news for all 92 counties, January 2025 to October 2026, recorded on the same fields.
• Schools: IDOE enrollment, transfer, voucher and charter data; DLGF referendum determinations; 171 school board race profiles.

Standards

• Nonpartisan: actions, votes, numbers and stated reasons only, with no labels or recommendations.
• Every fact ties to a named county, office or district.
• Only free sources. Paywalled pages were checked and only visibly free text used; Hoodline and campaign ads were not used.
• Personnel disputes, criminal matters and lawsuits involving individuals are kept on a separate review list, outside the findings.

Known gaps

• Minutes: about 15 counties have no usable 2025–26 minutes online, and several have missing months. Allen, Elkhart and St. Joseph block automated access.
• County estimates: the LSA county figures predate HEA 1427-2025 and HEA 1210-2026 and leave out the new flat credits.
• 2026 data: there are no 2026 actual spending figures yet. Lawrence's 2025 financial report is missing.
• Functions: spending functions are assigned from fund names, with 5–8% unclassified.
• Unconfirmed actions: Daviess's EMS rate, Boone's public-safety rate ordinance, Tippecanoe's final jail-tax vote and LaPorte's EMS hearing.
• Topic counts are keyword matches and approximate.
• To confirm: whether HEA 1210 removed the rule ending existing income-tax rates after 2028 unless renewed.

Key sources

• Indiana General Assembly, Indiana Code 2026 (Titles 3, 5, 6, 8, 11, 20, 33, 36)
• SEA 1-2025 enrolled act and LSA fiscal note
• LSA unit-level SEA 1 estimates
• HEA 1210-2026 and its fiscal note
• DLGF memos: Local income taxes, July 2026; Budgeting matters, July 2026; 2026 budget calendar
• State Budget Agency 2027 LIT certification
• Indiana Gateway for Government Units
• IDOE data center
• Indiana County Commissioners 2025 conference SEA 1 panel (slides)
• County minutes, ordinances and news: cited per county in the notes files.