Senate Bill 380 Summary

• Merges Indiana townships lacking a high school building, municipality, fire station, or population of 50,000 into contiguous recipient townships on January 1, 2016.

• Establishes a four-tier priority system for determining merger destinations: first to townships with high schools, second to townships containing municipalities, third to townships with fire stations, and fourth to townships with 50,000+ population.

• Exempts Marion County townships and townships that reorganized or merged before January 1, 2014 from mandatory consolidation.

• Transfers all property, records, personnel, rights, liabilities, and funds from abolished township governments to recipient townships while maintaining geographic boundaries and township names.

• Provides that pre-merger township indebtedness remains the liability of taxpayers in the township where the debt was incurred; requires new township elections in November 2016 with officer terms beginning January 1, 2017.