Wayne Township Trustee Jeb Bardon believes his constituents have an uncomfortable but important decision to make. They can either decide to transfer control of the Wayne Township Fire Department and Emergency Medical Services, or they can watch the township’s ability to provide services erode over the next year.
Bardon said years of overspending have put the township in a financial bind and merging with the Indianapolis Fire Department would be beneficial. If things continue as they are, he said, the township will run out of money in late 2025.
Right now, only three township fire departments in Marion County remain independent from IFD: Decatur, Pike and Wayne. While Wayne Township is discussing the potential to voluntarily merge, a very different conversation is happening at the Statehouse.
Sen. Scott Baldwin, R-Noblesville, introduced Senate Bill 54, which would have the potential to force all three townships to merge with Indianapolis. It’s unclear how much traction the bill will gain but there’s a hearing today, Jan. 17.
All three township trustees oppose the bill. Wayne Township doesn’t want to be forced into the decision, while Pike and Decatur oppose merging entirely.
In Wayne Township, Bardon, a Democrat, has looked at cost-cutting measures such as reducing salaries, leaving positions vacant, switching vendors and stopping its management of Lions Club Park. But despite having the highest property tax rate allowed by the state, the township will need millions more to pay for fire department operations in the years to come.
If the township continues to offer fire service it will have to borrow money or drastically cut the services it provides to residents, like financial assistance for burials, disaster relief, utilities and rent.
“We can’t do a referendum like a school district or a sales tax like a city or town,” Bardon said. “That puts us in a spot where there isn’t additional money to pay the bills, and the bills, frankly, are related to some of the best benefits and the highest salaries of any fire department in the state of Indiana. We’re up there with Carmel, but we don’t have the property tax revenue of Carmel to pay those bills.”
Wayne Township to vote on mergers
At a Wayne Township Advisory Board meeting Jan. 11, the township government introduced resolutions that would allow the township fire department and emergency medical services to merge with the Indianapolis Fire Department.
The board will meet again Jan. 25 to vote on its potential EMS merger and on Feb. 22 to hear public comment and vote on the potential firefighting merger.
The township has experienced three state audits and a federal audit since 2022, set off by allegations of misuse of public funds by a previous administration. Bardon took over as trustee that year, when former trustee Chuck Jones resigned after pleading guilty to a conflict of interest charge related to fire department expenditures.
A merger would transfer much of the financial burden of running the department to the larger IFD and would allow firefighters to sign on to their retirement health fund and gain other benefits.
Bardon believes a merger is the right decision for the township, but not everyone agrees. Residents worry about what the merger will do to response times.
“We’re going to have to be covering (Indianapolis EMS) because they’re short-staffed,” township resident Byron Jones testified Jan. 11. “So that means those ambulances are going to go other places. I’m not getting any younger. When are they gonna get to me if I have a heart attack?”
Another Wayne Township resident, Tina Bidgood, told the board that she does not want the lives of her family members to depend on favorable IFD dispatching.
“I don’t want someone coming from the east side to try to get to me, my husband or my son,” Bidgood testified. “We only have two children left, so I want to keep them safe.”
Senate Bill 54 would bypass the townships
As Wayne Township officials contemplate their future, state lawmakers will consider taking the decision out of their hands.
For the fourth time in a decade, state lawmakers are attempting to strip away the power of township governments to decide whether their fire departments should merge with the Indianapolis Fire Department.
Senate Bill 54 would allow the Indianapolis City-County Council and Mayor Joe Hogsett to bypass any of the three townships and authorize a merger.
Under the bill, the township fire department, firefighters, buildings, equipment, operating costs and some debts would be transferred to the IFD, but not paramedics or other department employees.
The city also would be allowed to levy new property taxes for five years after the merger.
If the senate bill is passed, the City-County Council could begin working to consolidate the fire departments as soon as it is signed into law.
Merging the fire departments is not on the council’s radar at this time.
City-County Council President Vop Osili could not be reached for comment, but members of both parties told Mirror Indy they opposed the bill.
District 21 Councilor Josh Bain, a Republican who represents a large portion of Decatur Township, said he would vote against any attempt to merge any township’s fire department without the respective township’s approval.
“There is really no practical public policy reason to do this,” Bain said. “I’d be a hard no on it. I think here in Decatur Township we’ve made it very clear that we offer great services. Our fire department is a great community partner, and we really don’t want to see local control stripped away.”
District 6 Councilor Carlos Perkins, a Democrat who represents District 6, said the decision to merge should stay local. He warned about outside influences making decisions for Indianapolis residents.
“I think it’s important that something that directly impacts Pike Township and the city of Indianapolis is generated from the residents of Pike township or the city of Indianapolis, and that’s not the case in this bill,” Perkins said. “We believe that the leadership and the governance of our fire departments should reflect the desire of our residents.”
Mirror Indy asked Baldwin’s office about why he thought the bill was necessary. He said the Professional Firefighters Union of Indiana asked for the bill and its specifics.
The Indiana Firefighter’s PAC regularly contributes to Baldwin’s re-election committee. It donated $1,500 in 2020 and $1,000 in 2021 and 2022.
The union declined to comment for this article, saying it would not comment before the bill was heard in the Senate Committee on Pensions and Labor today, Jan. 17.
The union, though, did list Marion County fire consolidation as one of its legislative priorities for 2024.
“We have tried to pass this a few times over the last decade, and we feel we have a good chance on passing it this session,” vice president Mike Whited wrote in a December 2023 union newsletter.
Similar bills were introduced in 2014, 2015 and 2020 by former Rep. Cindy Kirchhofer, R-Beech Grove, who claimed that consolidation was long overdue and would cut costs and improve efficiency.
Pike Township Trustee Annette Johnson, a Democrat, said only a minority of firefighters in her township want the merger to happen. She said she spoke to union representatives at a City-County Council meeting Jan. 8.
“‘OK, it’s eight of you that want this,’” she remembered telling them. “‘That’s not how it works. It should be the residents deciding this. If you’re so adamant about this, how come you guys have sneakily pushed this legislation through and haven’t had one town hall meeting?’”
Pike, Decatur townships concerned
For Wayne Township, the merger under its own terms could be a boon. It could alleviate an urgent financial situation and take care of its emergency services employees.
But for other townships, the bright side of a merger, especially a forced one, is hard to find.
Johnson is against merging Pike Township Fire Department with the Indianapolis Fire Department voluntarily and is against SB 54, saying both are not in the best interest of her constituents or firefighters.
Johnson believes taxes would go up for Pike Township residents, and the emergency response times could potentially worsen.
“Firefighters know all the shortcuts in your area,” Johnson said. “IFD would have to learn that. They don’t know what the best streets are to get to residents. Say Pike makes it there in two minutes and IFD makes it there in four minutes. It’s a matter of life and death.”
Johnson said the Pike Township Fire Department is well funded, well trained and well equipped. The department has 175 firefighters and medics, five fire engines, two ladder trucks, four ambulances and two boats.
The department averages about 75 calls a day, including some outside township borders. For about 90% of all calls, Pike Township firefighters or paramedics are at the scene of the emergency within six minutes and 23 seconds of receiving the call, well under the national benchmark of nine minutes and 20 seconds.
Johnson believes the response time would suffer if the department is merged with IFD, which takes about 438 calls a day.
In Decatur Township, Trustee Jason Holliday, a Republican, is concerned about the effect the senate bill would have on EMS service.
“It would probably be more detrimental to residents of the township, because ambulance services housed in the township would immediately go away,” Holliday said.
Holliday said Decatur Township has three ambulances staffed with three crews on call all day, every day to serve township residents.
He believes the bill could harm residents, as the loss of the township’s EMS would not be made up by Indianapolis, which is currently experiencing the largest staffing crisis it’s ever seen.
Indianapolis EMS has said it has had to rely on mutual aid agreements from neighboring departments to cover about 27% of calls to its service area, as it is short dozens of emergency medical technicians and paramedics.
The hearing is at 9:30 a.m. today, Jan. 17, 2024.
Mirror Indy reporter Enrique Saenz covers west Indianapolis. Contact him at 317-983-4203 or enrique.saenz@mirrorindy.org. Follow him on X @heyEnriqueSaenz.
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