Section 6 of 10
How counties are responding
From Indiana's Counties Going Into the 2026 Election · Ben Hizer · October 11, 2026
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.
| Response | How many counties | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Raised the local income tax (adopted 2025–26) | about 8 | Union 2.00% → 2.75% (economic development and a new EMS rate); Howard +0.40% public safety; Grant +0.20% jail; Carroll +0.20% EMS; Greene +0.10% jail and +0.10% courts (4–2); Shelby +0.10% for 911 dispatch and the jail (5–1); Monroe juvenile services 0.03% → 0.095% |
| Re-divided the same total rate | about 8 | Wells and Martin moved money into EMS and dispatch; Hancock, Parke, Marion and Morgan shifted components; Marshall replaced an expiring jail-bond rate with jail operations and public safety |
| Pending or first reading | 3+ | Tippecanoe 0.1% jail (7–0 first reading); LaPorte 0.20% EMS (hearing Oct. 14); Harrison weighing 1.00% → 1.25% |
| Rejected or tabled | several | Henry EMS increase; Greene hospital rate (3–3 twice); Porter ("not doing a LIT increase"); Posey funded fire departments from the general fund instead |
| Adopted the optional homestead-credit income tax | 0 of 92 found | — |
| Moved general-fund costs into income-tax funds | several | Floyd (jail meals and medical, probation, dispatch, emergency management); Dubois ($4.2M of health insurance); Decatur (about $1.09M of jail costs for 2027); Clinton |
| Adopted a wheel tax or excise surtax | about 13 | DeKalb, Crawford (4–3), Franklin, Harrison, Jefferson, Knox, Jackson, Martin, Pike, Marion (over a mayoral veto), Wabash, Wayne, Switzerland. Usually framed as needed for state road money; the 2026 law ties the two taxes to a lane-mile distribution, not to Community Crossings eligibility. Bartholomew put off its decision to 2027 |
| Hiring freeze | about 6 | Clark, Fayette, Grant, Johnson, Monroe, Vanderburgh; Lake's freeze was vetoed, and the council cut long-vacant positions instead |
| Took a documented step toward a county–city income-tax task force ("MUST") | roughly 35–40 | Clark meets every two weeks; DeKalb, Dubois, Delaware (using Policy Analytics tools), Lawrence, Monroe, Porter and Vanderburgh convened; Boone hired Baker Tilly for it (7–0) |
| Hired outside fiscal advisers | most counties (at least 60) | Baker Tilly appears most often, then Reedy, Financial Solutions Group, Peters Franklin, Policy Analytics, C.L. Coonrod, Cender Dalton |
- 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
| County | What the record shows |
|---|---|
| Harrison | Projected $12M gap for 2027; weighing a higher income tax; moved $2M of school property-tax relief to a county mechanism (4–3) |
| Marshall | Adviser's worst-case 2027 general-fund deficit of $7.08M |
| LaPorte | $6M general-fund deficit for 2026; wheel tax rejected 3–4; EMS income tax pending |
| Pulaski | About $4.6M short in 2029 (adviser projection) |
| Morgan | −$1.37M in 2026, growing to −$4.82M by 2032 (adviser projection) |
| Decatur | About $3.25M of general-fund cuts needed for 2027 |
| Knox | Two loans from its rainy-day fund to the general fund ($2.5M and $1.3M); about 44 days of general-fund cash at the end of 2025 |
| Floyd | About 44 days of general-fund cash; moving costs into income-tax funds |
| Fayette | Departments told to cut 2027 requests 15%; 3–3 tie votes |
| Vanderburgh | Cut more than $4M and kept a hiring freeze |
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?
| Practice | Counties where the record shows it |
|---|---|
| Quantified the hit across all local units, with their city | Henry (a joint resolution with New Castle estimating $5.8M in 2026 losses across all units; also won an excess-levy appeal) |
| Coordinated the income tax with the city | Howard (Kokomo put its share toward the jail, so the county raised 0.4% instead of about 1.2%) |
| Formal cash policy, and big projects priced more than one way | Hendricks (cash-management policy; costed its $90M judicial center under different financing) |
| Built reserves on purpose | Whitley (about $3.1M a year into the rainy-day fund); Tippecanoe (an $11M minimum balance) |
| Multi-year projections in public | Morgan (to 2032), Marshall (worst-case scenarios), Floyd, Clinton, Boone, Bartholomew, Clay |
| Started the 2028 negotiation early, with structure | Clark (meeting every two weeks since Aug. 2026), Delaware (Policy Analytics tools), Boone (consultant hired), DeKalb and Dubois (scheduled sessions) |
| Pursued state remedies | Hancock (maximum-levy appeal and a lobbyist), Henry (excess-levy appeal) |
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.
Whose job this is, on this ballot
Everything above is some office's responsibility, and most of those offices are on the ballot on Nov. 3. Below is which office does which part of it, what the law puts in the job, and what this study found about it.
County Council Member 368 races on this ballot
Adopts the county budget and the levy, and adopts the local income tax rates — including the 2028 rebuild, which every council must adopt between July 1 and Oct. 1 of 2028.
In this study Councils were already deciding in 2025–26: about eight raised the income tax, roughly 35–40 took a documented step toward the county–city negotiation, and the hardest votes split 4–3 and 5–4.
County Commissioner 94 races on this ballot
The county's executive: contracts, buildings, highways and ordinances, including wheel taxes and zoning questions the council then funds.
In this study Wheel taxes, jail and justice-center projects, and data-center moratoriums are commissioner-and-council business; 57% of commissioner races this year are uncontested.
County Auditor 65 races on this ballot
Keeps the county's books, applies every deduction and exemption to assessed value, certifies the net value to the state, and calculates the bills with the treasurer.
In this study Auditors turned out to be the in-house analysts of the 2025 overhaul — in Jay, Shelby and Owen they led the income-tax and task-force work, and Madison's auditor warned publicly about rainy-day use and jail bonds.
County Assessor 92 races on this ballot
Values property, and moves values toward the market each year using sales data. Assessed value is the base every deduction and every tax cap is applied to.
In this study State cost-table increases raised assessments sharply — Morgan +32% then +24%, Switzerland +35% — and assessors say they are understaffed for their parcel counts. Every county elects an assessor this year; seven of those races are contested.
County Treasurer 15 races on this ballot
Collects what is owed, holds and invests county cash, and makes the transfers between funds the state requires.
In this study Cash position is now the live question: Floyd and Knox ended 2025 with about 44 days of general-fund cash, and Knox took $3.8M in loans from its rainy-day fund.
County Sheriff 92 races on this ballot
Runs the jail and the patrol division, and asks the council for the staff and the building to do it.
In this study Jails and sheriffs take $1.04B of 2026 county budgets — the fastest-growing claim on them. Grant, Madison and Monroe hold about 30% more people than their stated limits; Allen, Howard, Madison and Monroe have jail projects of $100M to $270M. Every county elects a sheriff this year.
Prosecuting Attorney 92 races on this ballot
Charges and tries criminal cases for the circuit, and staffs the office the council funds.
In this study Staffing is the recurring request: Vanderburgh asked for more than six new prosecutors, Howard for six deputies (tabled), and Tippecanoe has nine attorney vacancies. Hancock is pursuing pay parity between prosecutors and public defenders.
Clerk of the Circuit Court 62 races on this ballot
Runs elections and keeps the court's records.
In this study Clerks appear in these minutes mostly through election costs and staffing; Lawrence made an emergency voter-registration hire in October 2026.
County Coroner 22 races on this ballot
Determines cause of death, and contracts the autopsies and forensic work the county pays for.
In this study Jasper's coroner asked for a forensic center as part of a $2.08M five-year plan, and a 2026 law adds training requirements for coroners.
School Board Member 632 races on this ballot
Adopts the school corporation's budget and its own levy, and decides which buildings stay open.
In this study Schools take about $0.42 of every property-tax dollar levied in Indiana. Enrollment is the pressure underneath: Elkhart is down 2,336 students since 2018–19 and is closing four elementary schools, and the 2025 overhaul dissolves Randolph County's Union School Corporation on July 1, 2027.
Township Trustee 939 races on this ballot
Runs township assistance and, in many townships, the fire service — on its own small levy.
In this study Townships take about $0.03 of every property-tax dollar, and fire and EMS are where the most new county income-tax money is going: Carroll, Martin, Shelby, Steuben, Union and Wells all added rates for it.
- What's included
- the U.S. House, statewide offices, every Indiana House and Senate district on the ballot, Indiana's statewide public questions and judicial retention questions, and county, township, city, town and school board races from the Indiana Election Division's candidate list.
- Everything else
- Local races (county, city, school board, judges) and anything else on your ballot are on your official sample ballot: IndianaVoters.in.gov.
- Candidate lists
- As of Monday, October 19, 2026.
- At the polls
- Indiana law lets you bring a list of candidates and public questions into the polling place, including one stored on your phone, as long as you don't electioneer. IC 3-11-8-18.5
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