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Monroe County township trustees urge county to protect local income tax share to fund basic assistance
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Summary
Township trustees told the Long Term Finance Committee that townships provided emergency assistance to thousands of county residents last year and urged the council to preserve a 0.05 share of local income tax for township services amid pending state changes to LIT distribution and township mergers.
Township trustees told the Monroe County Long Term Finance Committee on March 31 that township offices serve as a local safety net and asked the council to ensure townships retain a dedicated share of local income tax (LIT) as state law and distribution formulas change.
Efraat Rasar, introduced by the committee as the Bloomington Township trustee, said the 11 townships combined helped “over 5,600 individual recipients; that is almost 2,400 households,” and that the value of assistance shown in trustees’ packet was “over 1,300,000.” She and other trustees described everyday services that include eviction prevention, utility and food assistance, short-term housing after disasters and burial aid for residents without other means.
Leon Gordon, Perry Township trustee, laid out the townships’ financial reliance on LIT. He said Perry Township’s 2025 property tax levy is roughly $800,000 and that LIT “is pretty critical to our baselines of operations,” characterizing that reliance as about a third of operations for his township. Gordon said the trustees’ aggregate LIT baseline in the packet was approximately $1,640,000 and that statutory caps imply a maximum available pool of about $2,140,000; trustees asked the council to consider making a 0.05 share available to townships going forward.
Rita Barrow, Van Buren Township trustee, described township offices as “an office with an open door” where staff help residents with urgent needs and urged the council to “continue providing [LIT] to use for my and your constituents.”
Council members pressed for clarity about how any county-level allocation would interact with other claimants on the LIT pool, including county operations, fire/EMS, the library and Bloomington Transit. Councilmember Marty Hawk said earlier discussions had cited smaller shares to townships and warned that the distribution is constrained by statutory caps and competing demands. Hawk and others asked auditors and staff to provide more detailed, levy-specific and distribution-model data before any commitments.
Auditor staff offered a ‘LIT sandbox’ tool to illustrate distribution options and suggested a joint consultant or further cross-agency coordination to analyze trade-offs. The committee did not make policy decisions at the March 31 meeting; members said the trustees’ materials will inform budget deliberations and full-council decision-making closer to budget time.
