Municipal leaders around the state have been gathering for discussions on how to deal with the budget shortfalls caused by Senate Enrolled Act 1.
While the bill may save homeowners a few hundred dollars each this year, it is taking a bite out of government and school budgets.
On Friday, the roundtable sponsored by AIM–Accelerate Indiana Municipalities–was in northeast Indiana.
Mayors from Butler to Wabash talked about how it was impacting funding choices from the cost of firetrucks and firefighters to keeping community pools open.
Columbia City Mayor Ryan Daniel doesn’t believe what is happening is what Hoosiers signed up for.
And the uncertainty it is causing makes it hard for everyone to continue to do the things they need to do to build their communities.
“We're trying to be proactive about addressing those issues without really knowing what the true impact is going to be, because no one can tell us what the true impact is going to be.
Daniel says for now it is the job of municipal leaders to educate the public about what happened and why.
"So the challenges we have as elected officials is number one to educate the public about what the situation is, what kind of solutions we're trying to provide," he said. "And at the end of the day, what services we will or will not be able to provide to them with the dollars that we have available."
Officials then need to educate and advocate to legislators to make changes to the law as soon as possible.
"How we can change that, how we can provide tweaks and changes to that law that will then end up helping us provide the services we provide, and hopefully not hurt residents too much in the new system that they've created," Daniel said.
