Indiana TIF Confusion Exposed: Brownsburg Redevelopment Meeting Highlights Local Government Failures

I’m not condemning any individuals. I’m condemning the entire process. You guys know I’ve done this for years. I talk about things I go to and experience where I live, because there’s a very good chance something similar is happening where you live. I use my own experiences to try to alert you to what’s going on in your own communities. One thing I’ve said for a long time is that there’s often no vision and no leadership in many of these towns—and quite frankly, in a lot of cities too, though you tend to see it more in towns. I don’t think it’s malicious. It’s more naivete, mixed with people wanting to do good for their communities but not really understanding how.

Why Indiana Town Governance Often Lacks Clear Accountability

For those unfamiliar, in Indiana there’s a difference between towns and cities. The primary difference is that towns don’t have a mayor or an elected chief executive. I’ve been an advocate for growing towns to become cities, because there needs to be someone at the top who is accountable to voters. One of the things we try to do on this program—if you’re new, we do two hours of Indiana news, politics, and government every day—is explain how government actually works. A major reason government performs so poorly is that people don’t understand how it works, especially at the local level. So bear with me for a few minutes, because this matters. One of the biggest problems is that people don’t have the knowledge to understand the system, how it operates, or how it can work against them. In towns, there’s a position called a town manager. That’s not elected, it’s hired. They’re accountable to the town council, usually a five-person board. In practice, they function like a mayor, but without direct accountability to voters. They often end up steering things themselves, while councils don’t fully understand what’s going on either. So you get limited accountability and very little real leadership. Across central Indiana, there’s a real crisis of leadership and creativity. When those are missing, everything defaults to the path of least resistance—do the minimum, keep your job, avoid risk. That doesn’t work in a growing community. I went to a meeting last night where all of this was on display. Let me explain redevelopment commissions, because you need to understand this. Most towns and cities have a redevelopment commission. These are appointed bodies—by a mayor and council in cities, or by the town council in towns. They oversee what’s called tax increment financing, or TIF.

How Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Is Supposed to Support Community Growth

TIF was created by the Indiana General Assembly 30 or 35 years ago to help communities grow responsibly. Instead of going to the state for every infrastructure project, communities could control their own development. The idea was that tax revenue generated in a specific district stays in that district to fund infrastructure like roads, sidewalks, water lines, and sewer systems, which then attract business and expand the tax base. Normally, property taxes are distributed across multiple entities—schools, libraries, fire services, counties, and so on. In a TIF district, that money stays local to pay for improvements and bonds. Once those obligations are paid off, the revenue is released to those entities, ideally creating long-term stability. That’s the theory. So I went to a redevelopment commission meeting in Brownsburg. I served on that commission for four years when I was an elected official, and TIF dollars were a major part of how we reduced property taxes—18.5% over four years. If used properly, TIF can ease the burden on taxpayers. But it requires effort. You have to read, understand the system, have a vision, and actually want to accomplish something meaningful. That’s where things break down. At this meeting, the Brownsburg School Corporation came forward asking for funding for specific education-related programs. Their goal was to avoid a referendum. They didn’t explicitly say it, but avoiding a public fight over raising taxes is clearly part of it. They’ve been impacted by state policy changes and said, instead of going to voters for a referendum, they’re asking the redevelopment commission to release some of its excess TIF revenue. The idea is simple: if the TIF district has grown significantly, it should be able to support the broader community, including schools, without requiring tax increases. The request wasn’t for stadiums or extras. It was for education-related needs. In exchange, the school would avoid seeking a referendum that could raise taxes. It seemed like a straightforward decision. The town has excess revenue, the schools want to avoid raising taxes, and the purpose of TIF is to eventually support the broader tax base. I went in expecting it to be approved without much debate. Instead, the meeting went an hour and a half, and it became clear the commission didn’t fully understand what they were overseeing. These are people responsible for tens of millions of dollars, and they didn’t seem to grasp how TIF works. I don’t entirely blame them. I blame the council that appointed them. I blame the town staff. The town manager, who makes a six-figure salary, sat there and offered no real guidance. At any point, she could have clarified what needed to happen. Instead, nothing. The commission members were looking to staff for direction. Staff wasn’t providing it. The economic development director didn’t step in either. So the meeting turned into confusion, with people in the audience wondering how it even got to this point.

Brownsburg Meeting Highlights Breakdown in Leadership and Decision-Making

In the end, they didn’t resolve anything. They passed a version of the proposal that wasn’t exactly what the schools asked for, and then sent it to the town council. If the council changes it, it comes back to them. That’s where it was left after 90 minutes. Will it prevent a referendum? No one knows. This is the problem. You have people in positions of authority who don’t fully understand what they’re doing, leadership that won’t provide direction, and staff who may have their own priorities and choose not to intervene. There’s no coordination, no clear goal, and no accountability when things stall out. And in the end, the taxpayers are the ones who pay for it. The council still has a chance to fix it next week, but there’s no guarantee they will. If you want to serve in public office or on a board like this, you have an obligation to understand the system and make decisions with clarity. Even basic things at the meeting were disorganized. They couldn’t decide when to take public comment. They admitted they don’t usually have people show up. They struggled with process. This is a body overseeing tens of millions of dollars, responsible for major infrastructure decisions, and they needed things explained to them that they should already know. I’m not here to defend public education broadly. There are plenty of issues there. But I do defend taxpayers, and I recognize when a school district is trying to avoid raising taxes and work within the system. What I saw was a lack of structure, a lack of leadership, and a lack of preparation for a decision that will impact the future of the community. And the larger point is this isn’t unique. If it’s happening here, it’s happening where you live too. You want to know why property taxes don’t go down? This is why. You want to know why government doesn’t improve? This is why. You have well-meaning people who don’t understand the system, leadership that won’t lead, and staff who won’t step in when it matters. That’s how you end up with dysfunction. We’ll see what happens next Thursday.