Dickson, J.
This appeal challenges a summary judgment ruling that a county board of commissioners lacked authority to amend an ordinance that previously established a county-wide fire protection district. We reverse.
This is the third appeal involving the Brown County Fire Protection District (“District”). In 2007, the Brown County Board of Commissioners enacted an ordinance under the Fire Dis-trict Act, Ind. Code § 36-8-11-2 et seq., establishing the District. This ordinance included all four of the county’s townships and established the District for the following purposes: fire pro-tection, fire prevention, other purposes or functions related to fire protection and prevention, and other emergency services. Appellants’ App’x at 139–40. The ordinance also followed many sec-tions of the Fire District Act, including the appointment of a five-member Board of Fire Trustees for the District. See Ind. Code § 36-8-11-12.
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Under Indiana’s Home Rule Act, “a unit may exercise any power it has to the extent that the power: (1) is not expressly denied by the Indiana Constitution or by statute; and (2) is not expressly granted to another entity.” [Footnote omitted.] Ind. Code § 36-1-3-5(a), cited in Kole v. Faultless, 963 N.E.2d 493, 496 (Ind. 2012). Any doubt as to the existence of a unit’s power must be resolved in favor of its existence. Ind. Code § 36-1-3-3(b). We agree with the commissioners—and the landowners do not dispute—that no provision in the Fire District Act addresses amendments generally, nor does the Act expressly deny or expressly grant to another entity the power of the Board of Commissioners to amend an ordinance that previously established a county-wide fire protection district.
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The Indiana Legislature has given county legislative bodies the express authority not only to establish a fire protection district, but also to prescribe its scope “for any of the following pur-poses:” fire protection, fire prevention, and other purposes or functions related to fire protection and fire prevention. Ind. Code § 36-8-11-4(a) (emphasis added). The authority to amend the purpose(s) of a fire protection district is consistent with the express authority to assign its initial purpose(s). The Board of Commissioners’ authority to amend is further bolstered by provisions in the establishing ordinance explicitly recognizing such authority. See County Ordinance No. 09-04-07-01, Appellants’ App’x at 141 (“The trustee position shall be non-paid, pending any amendment to this Ordinance that authorizes compensation for trustees.”) (emphasis added), 143 (“This initial rate may be lowered in subsequent years but shall not be increased absent preapproval by adoption of an amendment to this Ordinance.”) (emphasis added). Further, to the extent the Fire District Act recognizes various roles for a county legislative body after a district has a unit is not limited by the Home Rule Act to “powers expressly granted by statute” but also has “all other powers necessary or desirable in the conduct of its affairs . . . .” Ind. Code § 36-1-3-4. By establishing the District, the Board of Commissioners did not necessarily and expressly relinquish its authority to amend to the District’s Board of Fire Trustees.
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We conclude that, under the Home Rule Act, boards of county commissioners are authorized to amend a fire protection district, even if such amendment dissolves the district. While this holding is inconsistent with the reinstated opinion of the Court of Appeals in Gaudin I, this Court is now able to review the issue with full participation, and we now disapprove of Gaudin I. [Footnote omitted.] The commissioners do not ask this Court to revisit Gaudin I; however, and the matter on appeal is not a dissolution of the District but a partial amendment of the ordinance that created it. We thus need not decide whether the Law of the Case Doctrine5 prohibits retroactive operation of our holding today. We conclude that under the Home Rule Act, the Board of Commissioners is not limited in its power to unilaterally amend the ordinance that previously established the District, notwithstanding the landowners’ claim that such amendment constitutes a de facto dissolution.
Conclusion
The amended ordinance 09-04-07-01 is a valid exercise of the authority of the Brown County Board of Commissioners. We reverse the trial court’s order granting summary judgment for the plaintiff landowners and remand to the trial court for further proceedings.
Rush, C.J., and Massa, J., concur.
David, J., concurs in result with separate opinion.
Rucker, J., dissents with separate opinion.
David, Justice, concurring in result.
I agree with my colleagues in the majority that the Board of Commissioners had the authority to pass the amending ordinance under the Home Rule Act, for a unit like the Board of Commissioners “may exercise any power it has to the extent that the power: (1) is not expressly denied by the Indiana Constitution or by statute; and (2) is not expressly granted to another entity.” Ind. Code § 36-1-3-5(a). Because the power to amend an existing fire district is neither expressly denied by our State’s Constitution or statutes nor expressly granted to another entity, the Board of Commissioners was within its authority to pass the amending ordinance.
However, I write separately because I do not believe that the Fire District Act’s express grant of authority to a county legislative body in Indiana Code § 36-8-11-4 to establish a fire protection district necessarily includes the power to amend the fire district established. [Footnote omitted.]
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RUCKER, J., dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. In Gaudin v. Austin, 921 N.E.2d 895 (Ind. Ct. App. 2010) (“Gaudin I”) freeholders challenged the Commissioners’ attempt to dissolve the fire protection district and the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in the Commissioners’ favor. In so doing the court held that although the Fire District Act explicitly provides in two discrete sections for the establishment of a district either by ordinance or by freeholder petitions, the Act provides only one method of dissolution, namely: the freeholder-petition process. See Ind. Code § 36-8-11-24 (“(a) Proceedings to dissolve a fire protection district may be instituted by the filing of a petition with the county legislative body that formed the district . . . . (b) The petition must be signed: (1) by at least twenty percent (20%), with a minimum of five hundred (500), of the freeholders owning land within the district; or (2) by a majority of those freeholders owning land within the district; whichever is less.”). Therefore the Commissioners lacked authority to unilaterally dissolve the district. See Gaudin I, 921 N.E.2d at 897-900.
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