SULLIVAN, J.
The City of Indianapolis abandoned the Barrett Law method of financing sewer improvements in favor of a new system that imposes less of a financial burden on property owners. To ease the transition, the City discharged all outstanding Barrett Law assessments owing as of November 1, 2005, but did not give refunds to those property owners who had previously paid their Barrett Law assessments in full or in part. We hold that the City did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because forgiving only the outstanding assessment balances was rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest.
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The only issue presented is whether the City’s forgiveness of all outstanding Barrett Law assessments as part of its transition to STEP violated the plaintiffs’ rights under the Equal Protection Clause, which provides that “[n]o State shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1. A law attacked on equal protection grounds will be upheld if it survives rational basis review, unless the classification is drawn along suspect lines or infringes the exercise of fundamental constitutional rights, in which case it must survive heightened judicial scrutiny. FCC v. Beach Communications, Inc., 508 U.S. 307, 313 (1993); Nordlinger v. Hahn, 505 U.S. 1, 10 (1992).
Because Resolution 101 neither involves a suspect classification nor inhibits the exercise of a fundamental constitutional right, the parties agree that it is not subject to heightened judicial scrutiny and must be analyzed under the rational basis standard. But they offer differing interpretations and applications of that standard, which requires us to examine the intricacies of the standard itself.
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Applying this standard, we find that Resolution 101 satisfies rational basis review and therefore does not run afoul of the Equal Protection Clause. Resolution 101 was part and parcel of the City-County Council’s ordinance moving the City from Barrett Law to STEP. [Footnote omitted.] Similar to the reasons prompting the overall transition to STEP, the text of Resolution 101 provides that it was enacted because Barrett Law funding imposed financial hardships on middle- and low-income property owners who were often most in need of sanitary sewers due to failing septic systems. Appellant’s App. 337, 350. Providing relief or support for citizens facing financial hardship is clearly a legitimate interest. E.g., Fitzgerald, 539 U.S. at 108-09; Carmichael, 301 U.S. at 515 (“Support of the poor has long been recognized as a public purpose.” (citing Kelly v. Pittsburgh, 104 U.S. 78, 81 (1881))).
Moreover, it was reasonable for the City to believe that property owners who had already paid their assessments were in better financial positions than those who chose installment plans. To be sure, there might be some property owners who could have paid up front but elected to pay in installments, despite being required to pay more because of interest. And it is possible that there are some who paid up front that are currently experiencing financial hardship. But, like in Clover Leaf Creamery, it does not matter under rational basis review what the actual facts would show, as determined in court, so long as the issue was at least debatable when the governmental decision maker acted. Thus, the Court of Appeals erred in requiring the City to come forth with proof that all the property owners who had their assessments discharged were actually middle- or low-income participants in the Brisbane/Manning Project. See Armour, 918 N.E.2d at 413 n.9. Finally, eliminating tax burdens is clearly a rational way of eliminating financial hardship caused by the tax burden.
There are several other interrelated plausible policy reasons for Resolution 101. [Footnote omitted.] As noted under Background, supra, the Brisbane/Manning Project was one of 40-plus Barrett Law projects subject to Resolution 101. The City could have reasonably believed that the benefits of simplifying sanitary sewer funding outweighed the effort of continuing a collection system for thousands of taxpayers, some of whom owed all, some a lot, and some only a little of their respective assessments. This is particularly so since keeping the outstanding payment obligations in play would have meant not only maintaining such a collection system but also sitting on the tax liens for up to 30 years. See Carmichael, 301 U.S. at 511; see also Beach Communications, 508 U.S. at 317-19 (justifying classification on administrative efficiency and conservation of limited regulatory resources); Lehnhausen, 410 U.S. at 365 (same). And the fact that it chose to draw the line at November 1, 2005, was a matter of discretion appropriately exercised by the City and the Board. See Fitzgerald, 539 U.S. at 108 (“The “task of classifying persons for . . . benefits . . . inevitably requires that some persons who have an almost equally strong claim to favored treatment be placed on different sides of the line,” and the fact the line might have been drawn differently at some points is a matter for legislative, rather than judicial, consideration.’” (quoting Fritz, 449 U.S. at 179) (omissions in original)).
Furthermore, the decision not to issue refunds to those who had already paid implicates another legitimate interest – preservation of limited resources. The City clearly has a legitimate interest in not emptying its coffers to provide refunds to those who had already paid their assessments. The funds from the particular assessments at issue here were used to fund the Brisbane/Manning Project and had already been spent in constructing those sewers. The plaintiffs each paid for a sewer and received a sewer, along with all the attendant public health benefits associated with sanitary sewers. This was not a case in which the plaintiffs were assessed for a local benefit and did not receive that local benefit. Cf. Carmichael, 301 U.S. at 523 n.15 (providing that where a local special assessment is “apportioned to benefits it is not constitutionally defective because the assessment exceeds the benefits” (citation omitted)). It is true that those whose assessments were discharged also received a sewer and did so at a lower price. But the Equal Protection Clause does not require substantive equality among taxpayers if there is a rational basis for differing treatment, and the Court of Appeals erred in concluding otherwise.
The City’s decision to forgive outstanding assessments was rationally related to its legitimate interests in reducing its administrative costs, providing relief for property owners experiencing financial hardship, establishing a clear transition from Barrett Law to STEP, and pre-serving its limited resources.
III
Despite the well-established rational basis standard described and applied in Parts I and II, supra, the plaintiffs urge us to adopt a different standard of scrutiny. Although they label it “rational basis,” it is a standard that is unknown in equal protection jurisprudence. They offer no evidence that the City’s decision to enact Resolution 101 was irrational. Rather, they argue that the City bears the burden of establishing a rational basis in the first place, and, to meet its burden, the City is required to submit evidence that those whose debts were discharged were actually middle- or low-income property owners. Because the City failed to carry this burden, they argue that they are entitled to summary judgment.
A
The plaintiffs rely primarily on the so-called “class-of-one” cases, which differ from typical equal protection cases. In typical cases, parties challenge government action that categorizes citizens into particular groups and then treats those groups differently, alleging either “that they have been arbitrarily classified as members of an identifiable group,’” Engquist v. Or. Dep’t of Agric., 128 S. Ct. 2146, 2152 (2008) (citation omitted), or that they are indeed members of an identifiable group against which the government has unconstitutionally discriminated, e.g., Brown v. Bd. of Educ., 347 U.S. 483, 487-88 (1954) (racially segregated schools). The laws underlying typical equal protection claims may be facially discriminatory, see, e.g., Vance v. Bradley, 440 U.S. at 95 (law requiring Foreign Service employees to retire at age 60 but imposing no mandatory retirement age for Civil Service employees), or they may be facially neutral but applied in a way that disparately impacts an identifiable class, [Footnote omitted.] see, e.g., Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 373-74 (1886) (invalidating a facially neutral ordinance because an administrative board had used its discretion under the ordinance to discriminate against individuals of Chinese ancestry).
In rare cases, a facially neutral law will be applied in a discriminatory manner against an individual or a small group of individuals whose only common characteristic is that they have been singled out for different treatment (in essence, an otherwise unidentifiable group). The absence of an identifiable class does not preclude a plaintiff from raising an equal protection claim because the Equal Protection Clause “’protect[s] persons, not groups.’” Engquist, 128 S. Ct. at 2150 (alteration in original) (quoting Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, 515 U.S. 200, 227 (1995) (emphasis omitted)). Thus, a plaintiff who is not part of an identifiable class but is singled out for discriminatory treatment can raise a “class-of-one” equal protection claim. See Vill. of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562, 564-65 (2000) (per curiam). [Footnote omitted.}
In many class-of-one cases, underlying the government’s decision is animus or ill-will toward the plaintiffs. E.g., Olech v. Vill. of Willowbrook, 160 F.3d 386, 387-88 (7th Cir. 1998) (Posner, C.J.), aff’d on other grounds, Olech, 528 U.S. at 565; see also Esmail v. Macrane, 53 F.3d 176, 178-79 (7th Cir. 1995) (Posner, C.J.). The Supreme Court in Olech did not reach the question of whether the Village’s subjective motivations were sufficient to state a class-of-one claim. Olech, 528 U.S. at 565. In a concurring opinion, however, Justice Breyer reasoned that “the presence of [animus or vindictiveness] in this case [was] sufficient to minimize any concern about transforming run-of-the-mill zoning cases into cases of constitutional right.” Olech, 528 U.S. at 566 (Breyer, J., concurring). Subsequently, Judge Posner wrote in Bell v. Duperrault, 367 F.3d 703, 709-13 (7th Cir. 2004) (Posner, J., concurring), what is to us a most convincing argument for adopting Justice Breyer’s reasoning in Olech.
The plaintiffs argue that the relevant class is limited to the property owners in Northern Estates who were subject to the Brisbane/Manning Project Barrett Law assessment. In essence, they argue this is a class-of-one case because they were treated differently than the other residents of Northern Estates.
We disagree and hold that this is not a class-of-one case. The text of Resolution 101 de-fines the group entitled to receive the benefit, to the exclusion of all others. It distinguishes between property owners who had outstanding Barrett Law assessments on November 1, 2005, and property owners who did not. Only those who had outstanding assessments on that date were subject to the benefit of Resolution 101. Resolution 101 does not limit the Barrett Law projects to which it applies but forgives all outstanding Barrett Law assessments, regardless of the particular project under which the assessments were levied. As discussed supra, it was not just Brisbane/Manning taxpayers who had paid their assessments in full who did not receive refunds; no taxpayers in any of the 40-plus Barrett Law projects received any refunds of the amounts they had paid, including those who had paid some but not all of their installments – thousands of tax-payers, some of whom had paid all, some a lot, and some only a little of their respective assessments.
Unlike the class-of-one cases, the Resolution makes a broad classification on the basis of a common characteristic – outstanding Barrett Law balances. Cf. Ind. Aeronautics Comm’n, 368 N.E.2d at 1347 (rejecting contention that the case was essentially a class-of-one claim because the grievance on which the claim was based was common to the whole class). And there is no evidence that the City’s action was motivated by animus or ill-will toward the plaintiffs or any other property owners who did not have outstanding assessments.
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Applying the appropriate standard of review under the Equal Protection Clause to the undisputed facts, we hold that Resolution 101 does not violate the Equal Protection Clause as applied in this case because it is rationally related to legitimate governmental interests. And because we find that the City did not violate the plaintiffs’ rights under the Equal Protection Clause, we have no occasion to consider whether the trial court was correct in requiring the City to provide refunds to the plaintiffs or whether alternative remedies consistent with due process were available. [Footnote omitted.]
Conclusion
We hold that Resolution 101 does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it is rationally related to legitimate governmental interests. Accordingly, we reverse the decision of the trial court and remand with instructions to grant judgment for the City on the plaintiffs’ federal equal protection claim.
Shepard, C.J., and David, J., concur.
Rucker, J., dissents with separate opinion in which Dickson, J., concurs.
RUCKER, Justice, dissenting.
I am not persuaded that the City has advanced a rational basis for its classification between property owners who chose to pay their Barrett Law assessments in a lump sum and those who elected to pay in installments. Instead, I am of the view that Resolution 101 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution as applied to the homeowners in this case. Therefore I respectfully dissent.
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To be sure the City advanced multiple post-hoc rationalizations for the differential treatment. [Footnote omitted.] But such arguments do not obviate the failure of the Resolution to pass rational basis scrutiny on the reasoning set forth in its text.
This is not a case like Clover Leaf, where the classification between plastic and non-plastic milk cartons satisfied equal protection concerns and there was evidence the legislature rationally believed the classification would further the stated objective of reducing solid waste, despite empirical evidence to the contrary. See Clover Leaf, 449 U.S. at 463-64, 469. Here, there is no indication that the Board even believed the classification would further its stated objective. The stated purpose in Resolution 101 simply fails to express any connection to the distinction between residents who elected to pay their assessments in a lump sum and those who elected to pay in installments. In my view this disconnect demonstrates that the classification fails to have “a fair and substantial relation” to the statutory objective. See Allied Stores, 358 U.S. at 527. I therefore agree with the Court of Appeals and would affirm the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the homeowners.
Dickson, J., concurs.