Government at a Crossroads: Some say locals get unfair blame

Arizona Tax Revolt commentary:

All politicians must be cast from the same mold. Whenever the public outrage gets loud enough they pull out their first aid box of band-aids which when it comes to excessive property taxes often has a one time rollback or a shift of the tax burden, never a lasting tax reduction or a change that would better distribute the tax burden. We need a cure for government overspending not another band-aid. Perhaps our fellow overtaxed citizens in Indiana should learn from our Tax Revolt and use our ideas to their benefit.

Marc Goldstone, Chair.
Arizona Tax Revolt

Published: January 07, 2008
NHI Indiana
by Arthur E. Foulkes

Some predict election fallout if lawmakers fail to act

Local government officials are on the front line of Indiana’s current property tax revolt.

“We get them at the front counter,” Nancy Marsh, treasurer of Hendricks County, said of the taxpayers calling for reform.

Some Hoosier property tax bills have increased by $5,000, Marsh said.

“That’s not acceptable,” she said. “Those people definitely have a complaint.”

But Marsh and other local elected officials say the state’s leaders are unfairly blaming them for the property tax mess.

“I’d like to shift the blame back,” Marsh said. “They are doing a good job shifting it to the counties.”

Gov. Mitch Daniels says Indiana has too much costly local government. And a blue ribbon commission, appointed by Daniels, recently recommended replacing nearly all county-level elected officials, such as auditors, commissioners and sheriffs, with employees appointed by a single elected county executive.

“I don’t know why the counties are on the hit list with the state,” Marsh said. “Everybody knows it’s the schools” where local costs are rising.

Schools account for 75 percent of Hendricks County’s property tax bill, Marsh said. County government accounts for just 10 percent, she said.

“I do think local government is being unfairly accused,” said Sen. Tim Skinner of Terre Haute, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Tax and Fiscal Policy committee.

The state is just as much to blame as local government, he said.

“We’re all in this together,” he said.

Ideas to reform local government should be moved to the back burner, said Howard County Treasurer Martha Lake. Lawmakers should work on property tax relief first and then see what can be done to reform local government, she said.

“Don’t bite off more than you can chew,” Lake said.

Skinner, for one, said he does not support a major overhaul of local government.

“Local government is not perfect,” Skinner said, but doing away with county-level elected offices, even township assessors, is an idea Skinner does not support.

“I think government is best when it is closest to the people,” he said.

The property tax mess was caused when state lawmakers eliminated the state inventory tax without a plan to make up the revenue, local officials say.

“Nobody had any idea how big of an impact that was going to have,” said Judy Rust, auditor of Delaware County.

Tax abatements for businesses and special economic development taxing districts have added to the problem, she said.

Every moment of this year’s short legislative session will be used to try to do something about the property tax problem, Skinner said. But he does not expect, or support, any radical changes in the property tax system.

“There’s going to be some help this session,” Skinner said, adding he thinks the Legislature will pass laws helping people in danger of losing their homes and other relief for low- and middle-income Hoosiers.

Whatever happens, lawmakers need to do something about property taxes this session if they want to be re-elected in November, local officials said. However, it might already be too late.

“If taxes aren’t received better and handled better, it’s not going to be a very good year for anybody who’s in office,” Lake said. “People have had enough.”