Evansville council weighs municipal wheel tax as state grant rules change

The Evansville Common Council discussed a proposed municipal wheel tax and how recent state legislative changes have reshaped local grant eligibility during its Aug. 11, 2025, meeting at Evansville City Hall. Council members, the city engineer and residents debated whether a new local vehicle registration surtax is necessary to secure road-repair grant dollars and to offset projected state revenue losses.

The discussion mattered because House Bill 1461 and related state actions have split the Community Crossings matching-grant program into two funding streams, council members and staff said, and one of those streams will be available only to municipalities that levy a local wheel tax. "We will, as a city, lose upward of $15,000,000 over the next three years," President J. Trotman said while outlining the administration's rationale for considering the tax. He also told the public the item would be on the council's next agenda for final action.

City Engineer Mike Lubitsky told the council the state has moved much of the grant funding into a "secondary bucket" that requires…